Human Rights Council holds Special session on the Situation of Human Rights in Côte d'Ivoire since the elections

Human Rights Council
BACKGROUND RELEASE

22 December 2010

The Human Rights Council will hold a Special Session on "The situation of human rights in Côte d'Ivoire since the elections on 28 November 2010" on Thursday 23 December, starting at 10 a.m. in Room XX of the Palais des Nations.

The holding of the Special Session comes at the request of Nigeria on behalf of the African Group and the United States of America. The request is signed by the following 20 Member States of the Human Rights Council: Belgium, Brazil, France, Gabon, Hungary, Japan, the Maldives, Mexico, Nigeria (on behalf of the African Group), Norway, Poland, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of Moldova, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Zambia.

In conformity with paragraph 10 of General Assembly resolution 60/251, which established the Human Rights Council, the support of one-third of the membership of the Council (16 members or more) is required for a special session to be convened.

This will be the fourteenth Special Session of the Council. Previous Special Sessions have been held on the human rights situations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in Lebanon, in Darfur, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Myanmar and in Sri Lanka, as well as on the world food crisis and the economic and financial crisis in relation to human rights. The last Special Session of the Council, on the support for the recovery process in Haiti after the earthquake of 12 January, took place in January 2010.

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For use of the information media; not an official record