Impact of the work of Special Procedures: Human Rights Mainstreaming

UNITED NATIONS AND ALL ITS BODIES AND MECHANISMS

Independent Expert contributes to the first-ever Arria-formula meeting convened on Integrating the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons into the Work of the Security Council

On 20 March 2023, Security Council members held an Arria-formula meeting on “Integrating the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) Persons into the Council’s Mandate for Maintaining International Peace and Security”.

The former UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), Victor Madrigal-Borloz, joined civil society representatives in briefing the Arria-formula meeting. This was the first-ever open meeting of Council members on LGBTI issues.

This informal meeting was organised by the US and co-sponsored by Albania, Brazil, France, Japan, Malta, Switzerland, and the UK, together with non-Council members Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, and Greece. It was also co-sponsored by the UN LGBTI Core Group—a cross-regional group comprising 42 UN member States, the EU, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the non-governmental organisations Human Rights Watch and Outright International.

Objectives of the meeting included the identification of steps that the Council could take to better incorporate the human rights of LGBTI persons in carrying out its mandate to maintain international peace and security. Questions discussed at the meeting included:

· How to increase awareness within UN field missions on the need to better integrate respect for the human rights of LGBTI persons into peacekeeping and peacebuilding?

· What can the Security Council do to increase protection for LGBTI persons who have unique needs and vulnerabilities in situations of armed conflict and fragile societies?

· How to strengthen and build upon existing Security Council workstreams–such as UN Security Council resolution 2475 on the protection of persons with disabilities in conflict, Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), and Youth, Peace and Security (YPS)–to include LGBTI persons?

· How to practically expand the Woman, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda to promote cross-cutting intersectional identities, including those related to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression?

Mr. Madrigal-Borloz briefed Council members on his work and made recommendations on how the Council could better address the rights of LGBT and gender-diverse persons within its mandate. He cited his report to the General Assembly issued in July 2022, which reviewed relevant legal and normative frameworks, analysed forms of conflict-related violence based on SOGI, and stressed the importance of the participation of LGBT and gender-diverse persons in transitional and peacebuilding processes.

Moreover, the Independent Expert told the Council members that ‘the gender dimensions of the international agenda on peace and security would be incomplete if they do not address the situation of LGBT and gender-diverse persons during the outbreak, escalation, recurrence or continuation of conflict”, and he recommended that the Security Council respond to calls “to back politically the expansion of the women and peace and security agenda, with the purpose of including an intersectional approach that will in turn contribute to more comprehensive implementation and global monitoring of the agenda”.

Twelve of the Security Council members took the floor, broadly welcoming a better integration of SOGI-related issued into the work of the Council. The meeting was a crucial discussion and step forward in finding ways to integrate the human rights of LGBTI persons into the Security Council’s work.

The Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Mr. Olivier De Schutter, suggested establishment of a Global Fund for Social Protection (GFSP)

On 30th June 2021, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Mr. Olivier De Schutter, presented his thematic report on the establishment of a Global Fund for Social Protection (GFSP) to the 47th session of the HRC. The report proposes a roadmap for the establishment of this new international mechanism based on consultations, which involved a number of governments and international agencies, and the proposals made have been prepared in close collaboration with the International Labour Office. Importantly, the report:

(i) proposes to build on already existing structures, mechanisms and fora (the USP2030 initiative co-led by ILO and World Bank, the ILO Flagship Programme on Social Protection Floors, the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office as the executing agency, in particular), in order to avoid duplication: the idea is to strengthen these structures, mechanisms and fora, not to compete with them, and to increase the means at their disposal to ensure developing countries (LICs in particular) are better supported;
(ii) explains how international support can help make progress towards improved mobilization of domestic resources;
(iii) explains why social protection floors are not a cost, but an investment for a more inclusive type of growth and the strengthening of human capital.  

On 19th June 2021, the International Labour Conference adopted conclusions requesting the ILO to "initiate and engage in discussions on concrete proposals for a new international financing mechanism, such as a Global Social Protection Fund, which could complement and support domestic resource mobilization efforts in order to achieve universal social protection". This is a very important dynamic emerged with the vote of the International Labour Conference tasking the ILO with identifying how the Global Fund for Social Protection could be set up.

This shows how Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council can collaborate with other UN agencies to make things happen, and it builds on the joint position adopted by the High Commissioner, Mr. Guy Ryder and Mr. Olivier De Schutter in September 2020, when a High-Level expert meeting on the establishment of a Global Fund for Social Protection was set up with the French government.

Other impact: Facilitating dialogue and/ or coalition building

Special Rapporteur on the environment promotes human rights-based approach to climate actions in the Paris Agreement and Human Rights Council resolutions

The consistent advocacy of the Special Rapporteur on the environment promoting a human rights-based approach to climate actions contributed to the inclusion of human rights language in the Paris Agreement, the first environmental agreement that explicitly recognizes human rights. In so doing, the Special Rapporteur provided guidance to States and other stakeholders, advocated the importance of human rights in key meetings, urged States to embrace their human rights obligation in climate-related actions through public advocacy, and produced a number of climate change reports, including his latest report to the 31st session of Human Rights Council in 2016 (A/HRC/31/52). The efforts of integrating human rights in climate actions are not only reflected in the Paris Agreement but also in Human Rights Council resolutions, including resolution A/HRC/RES/31/8. Now, it has become undeniable that climate change cannot be discussed without taking human rights into account, and vice versa. The mandate's climate change project is a successful example of human rights mainstreaming.

Other Impact: Human Rights Standard Setting and Raising Human Rights Awareness

United Nations adopts new policy and guidelines on unarmed private security providers

Between 2013 and 2014, the Working Group on the use of mercenaries undertook a yearlong study aimed at examining how the United Nations contracts private security companies. It reviewed the efforts undertaken by the United Nations to mitigate risks relating to the recruitment of private security providers, in particular its policy and guidelines on the use of private armed guards. The results of the study were compiled into a report that the Working Group presented to the General Assembly in 2014 (A/69/338). The report notably considered the limitations of these policy tools and made recommendations on ways and means to ensure efficient selection and vetting process when employing private security companies. The report also noted a gap in policy on unarmed private security providers.

As a direct response to one the key Working Group's recommendations, the Inter Agency Security Management Network, chaired by the Under-Secretary General for Safety and Security, agreed to develop guidelines on unarmed services provided by private military and security companies contracted by the United Nations. The Working Group subsequently provided comments on the draft policy and guidelines documents on unarmed private security providers. Both documents entered into force in 2016, thus closing the policy gap on unarmed private security providers used by the United Nations. The Working continues to regularly meet representatives of the United Nations Department of Safety and Security to follow up on the recommendations made in its 2014 report.

Other Impact: Human Rights Standard Setting and Policy Reform