Presentation by Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for the launch of the OHCHR Report 2015 to Member States

31 May 2016

Excellencies,
Colleagues and friends,             

I am honoured to present to you the Annual Report of my Office for 2015. Following this discussion, I will brief you at some length on our ongoing change proposals. But I want first to highlight the achievements, and the struggles, of my staff, as we have sought over the past year to fulfil what is certainly one of the most complex and essential mandates of any international organisation: the protection and promotion of human rights.

Our work is vital for the prevention of suffering and crises of all kinds. And it is the only way to ensure enduring reconciliation of the many conflicts that are spreading today across the world. Respect for the rights of every individual promotes full and sustainable development and builds peace; this is in the national interest of every State, and in the collective interest of humanity.

I am proud of what my staff achieved in 2015 -- globally, regionally, and at national and local levels, in the context of our field presences in 64 countries.

The work of our field presences has helped States to identify gaps in their protection of human rights, while our technical cooperation – including legislative advice – has led to real changes on the ground. One particularly crucial force for change has been the work by our field presences to help human rights defenders, and other civil society actors, develop strong partnerships and raise their voices to claim their rights. Another very significant factor is our extensive training, including work to strengthen the independence and knowledge base of rule of law institutions; to guide police and security personnel to adopt better working tactics; and to heighten human rights education.

The Report includes a multitude of projects that have had massive impact. We contributed to the functioning of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies in numerous countries, including Bolivia, Georgia, Liberia and Uganda, where over 200 police and officials participated in workshops with a particular focus on torture, on public freedoms, and on human rights standards applicable in the context of counter-terror investigations. Our field presences assisted numerous countries, including Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Senegal, to develop and implement national human rights plans or programmes with achievable goals, anchored in international human rights norms.  Working with minority groups and indigenous communities, we helped numerous groups in Cambodia, Guatemala and elsewhere to assert their fundamental rights, including land rights, in the context of rapidly expanding commercial projects. In Cambodia, this work has enabled one community in Battambang province to recover 720 hectares of land, and to establish precedents that will help many others.

Our work in the context of the UN Funds for Torture and Slavery provides another noteworthy example of real impact to change lives. In 2015, over 60,000 victims of human rights violations, in almost 100 countries, were provided medical, psychological, legal and social rehabilitation, helping them to rebuild their lives in dignity.

I also want to highlight the often crucial human rights guidance that my Office develops, with practical approaches and procedures that can be used by States, the UN and other actors. For example, in 2015, as migration crises rose to a head, we stepped up a range of capacity-building activities in several concerned countries. In addition, together with UNHCR, my Office helped train personnel of the EU Naval Force operating in the Mediterranean, and we also developed a detailed package of guidance on border governance and migration policy, for authorities at all levels. In addition, we facilitated specific briefings on migration for Member States of the Human Rights Council as the crises escalated.

In this tenth year of the Human Rights Council’s existence, I’d like to emphasise the considerable work done by my staff in support of the Council; its 55 Special Procedures, with 77 mandate holders; and its UPR – which in 2015 reviewed 42 States. We have given support to over 60 countries to establish or strengthen National Mechanisms for Reporting and Follow-Up to the recommendations of the treaty bodies, Special Procedures and UPR. To take just a few examples, this work is underway in Angola, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Turkey and Ukraine, among many other countries. We also continue assisting Paraguay with its SIMORE tool to record, organize and facilitate follow-up to the recommendations issued by the human rights mechanisms. SIMORE is now widely used by State authorities, universities, NGOs and the media, and has been fundamental to supporting the design of public policies such as the National Action Plan on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and for the preparation of submissions to the mechanisms. The Office is also in the course of supporting a number of other States to build national databases of recommendations online, in order to further follow-up work at the country level. Sadly, although we have numerous pending requests for this kind of assistance, there are far too many requests to fulfill them, at current resources.

The Human Rights Council has developed growing influence over the past decade, particularly in the context of early warning. In the past year this was very evident in the context of the Boko Haram crisis and on Burundi. I note that this increased influence has translated into constantly increasing requests from the Council for OHCHR’s participation in technical cooperation programmes, reports and investigations. At the end of 2015, seven Commissions of Inquiry and investigative missions were underway, including the Syria COI which has been operating since September 2011. (The other COIs underway in 2015 related to Eritrea, Gaza, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan and Sri Lanka. Investigations in Burundi were mandated in late 2015 but did not become operational until 2016).

The treaty body system also began its expanded meeting time in 2015, which resulted in my office facilitating 173 State party reviews and the adoption of 183 final decisions on individual communications. The new Treaty Body Capacity-Building programme, also in its first year, organised some 40 activities globally, including two training-of-trainers events. We also continue to make important progress in further strengthening the treaty body system.

Within the UN ecosystem, we very actively promoted a core emphasis on human rights throughout the milestone 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. OHCHR helped develop and promote data and statistical methods to measure freedom from fear and want, and while the final list of indicators is not yet complete, we expect that many of those recommended by OHCHR will be included among the 2030 Agenda’s measurement tools.

More generally, we continued our work, in the context of Human Rights Up Front, to ensure that every UN officer, in every UN operation, prioritises human rights issues and a human rights based-approach, whether they are working on development, humanitarian operations, peace and security, or the rule of law. In this context, I want to highlight two new elements in 2015. Our Peace Missions Support Section moved to New York, where it will continue working to integrate human rights into peacekeeping and special political missions. And together with DPA, we began deployment of fast-moving “light teams” for early warning purposes. The first light teams were sent to Burkina Faso, Lesotho, and the Republic of the Congo.

The Annual Report is an important tool to maintain the accountability of my Office for commitments made and funding received. Applying to our own work the same principles which we advocate for Member States, we have sought, to the extent possible, to quantify our work towards specific, defined goals. This is still year two of our four-year Management Plan, and I am pleased to inform you that our targets are on track overall, with over 50% achievement or higher when adding together what has been achieved together with the partial, ongoing achievements.

Still, this Report bears the marks of budget cuts, which have bitten into the number of our targets and our ability to achieve them. In 2015, we received US$125.9 million in voluntary contributions, the highest amount ever received by my Office. However, our expenditure amounted to US$128.7 million. Our funding shortfall last year was small – less than US$ 3 million— but this was the sixth consecutive year in which our income was lower than expenditures.  I deeply regret that our funding situation prevents us from fully pursuing the essential programmes which I have just outlined, and many others. In March, I met with the President of Togo, who expressed his dismay that we had been forced to close our office in the country, which had achieved significant impact in the aftermath of political unrest and electoral violence. This is just one example of the work we could be doing to continue to anchor principles into reality –  helping people to realise their economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, and assisting societies to become more inclusive, more resilient and more just.

In the coming year, I trust that we will be able to count on strong support from all of you. We need your help. It is my mandate, and the imperative of the United Nations, to continuously seek ways to do the best we can to respond to increasing demands within our resources. We will continue to make adjustments to maximise our impact but I must be clear: those resources are insufficient. While we continue to pursue increases in efficiency and effectiveness to stretch our minuscule budget, we will also continue to underscore the need for an allocation of resources more commensurate with our mandate and the demands of the international community.

I am concerned about the effects of increasing earmarking by those States which do contribute voluntary funds, and about the overall funding gap between needs and resources. Our reserves are being depleted, and we need far more consistent and considerable funding if we are to achieve the work we should be doing.

This may be the appropriate moment to introduce Laurent Sauveur, our new Chief of External Outreach. Laurent has very considerable experience with communications and fund-raising in humanitarian and development work – including almost two decades of work with Médecins sans Frontières and CARE – and he is a long-distance runner: all skills that may prove invaluable as he seeks to mobilise resources and support for our work.

As you know, several specific areas of this report will be discussed in depth during our technical meeting in July, but I’ll be glad to take your questions about our work and future.