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CONSULTATIONS AND EXCHANGE OF VIEWS ON PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST MEETING OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
21 April 2006
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21 April 2006
Statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights
I should like first to thank all of you for having so numerously and positively responded to the invitation from my Office for these consultations and exchange of views. The idea for holding such consultations took shape in discussions with many interlocutors in the past few weeks. There is a general feeling that it would be appropriate at this stage - now that we are a few weeks from the elections of the members of the Human Rights Council and only two months from its establishment - to have an exchange of views with a broad-based participation of delegations and representatives from intergovernmental organizations, national institutions and civil society on the questions relating to the preparations of the first meeting of the new body in June.
Before I continue and further elaborate on the purpose of today?s gathering, let me warmly welcome Ambassador Ricardo Arias and thank him for having joined us from New York. The President of the General Assembly, whom I recently met in New York, has invited Ambassador Arias to participate in this gathering. This is a testimony of the interest of the President of the General Assembly to ensure that the preparatory process for the 19 June meeting of the Council - which should be a Geneva-driven process - be initiated as soon as possible.
As you are all aware, the Human Rights Council, when it will first meet this June, will face a heavy workload, very high expectations and a limited amount of time. Much work needs to be done now in order to ensure a smooth and effective holding of this first meeting of the Council. In facing the task ahead of us, we are energized by the consciousness that we are on the threshold of a historic moment and turning point in the history of human rights protection and promotion.
The Human Rights Council offers the opportunity for all of us - Member States, the international community at large, NGOs, national institutions and all actors participating in its deliberations - to create a reinvigorated system of human rights protection, guided by the letter and spirit of GA Resolution 60/251. It is indeed a unique opportunity to reconstruct the way forward, and many different options are available in this respect.
The Council is mandated to address several questions in the course of its first year. Virtually everything is to be constructed. Notably, the Council has at hand a new instrument, the universal periodic review of the fulfilment of the human rights obligations by each State, which will need to be further refined by the Council in the months to come. Moreover, the Council assumes and will subsequently review all mandates, functions and responsibilities of the Commission in order to maintain a system of special procedures, expert advice and a complaint procedure. Again, this review needs to be completed within one year. As the Council would meet more regularly throughout the year, preparations for the post-19 June sessions will also have to be initiated soon.
In addition, the Council should strive to avoid any protection gap and to discharge the mandate entrusted to it by the General Assembly vis-à-vis all rights holders. As such, and this is a shared responsibility, it will be essential to avoid falling into the trap of spending more time discussing procedure than substance. The Council ought to address at its first meeting several issues in that respect, even if only on an interim basis, including the extension of special procedure mandates and terms of office of mandate-holders, the consideration of the reports from the intergovernmental open-ended working groups, the fate of the 1503 procedure and that of the Sub-Commission and its own mechanisms.
Most urgently, however, we must put in place a process that will enable the future members of the Council and all participants to clarify many of the technicalities involved in the preparations of the first meeting and to respond to the numerous questions arising in this context. Our exchange of views today therefore should first and foremost serve to clarify the process that will lead to the 19th of June and the first Council meeting. The purpose is certainly not for the Secretariat to direct discussions, but on the contrary, to listen to the comments and reactions from delegations and participants in this respect.
Today's session is informal in the true sense of the word - all participants, who are seated here freely, are at liberty to speak as they wish, and in the order in which they ask for the floor. I hope that this setting will provide a fertile ground for constructive suggestions for the way forward on the pressing decisions that have to be taken in the lead-up to the Council's first meeting.
Statement by the High Commissioner for Human Rights
I should like first to thank all of you for having so numerously and positively responded to the invitation from my Office for these consultations and exchange of views. The idea for holding such consultations took shape in discussions with many interlocutors in the past few weeks. There is a general feeling that it would be appropriate at this stage - now that we are a few weeks from the elections of the members of the Human Rights Council and only two months from its establishment - to have an exchange of views with a broad-based participation of delegations and representatives from intergovernmental organizations, national institutions and civil society on the questions relating to the preparations of the first meeting of the new body in June.
Before I continue and further elaborate on the purpose of today?s gathering, let me warmly welcome Ambassador Ricardo Arias and thank him for having joined us from New York. The President of the General Assembly, whom I recently met in New York, has invited Ambassador Arias to participate in this gathering. This is a testimony of the interest of the President of the General Assembly to ensure that the preparatory process for the 19 June meeting of the Council - which should be a Geneva-driven process - be initiated as soon as possible.
As you are all aware, the Human Rights Council, when it will first meet this June, will face a heavy workload, very high expectations and a limited amount of time. Much work needs to be done now in order to ensure a smooth and effective holding of this first meeting of the Council. In facing the task ahead of us, we are energized by the consciousness that we are on the threshold of a historic moment and turning point in the history of human rights protection and promotion.
The Human Rights Council offers the opportunity for all of us - Member States, the international community at large, NGOs, national institutions and all actors participating in its deliberations - to create a reinvigorated system of human rights protection, guided by the letter and spirit of GA Resolution 60/251. It is indeed a unique opportunity to reconstruct the way forward, and many different options are available in this respect.
The Council is mandated to address several questions in the course of its first year. Virtually everything is to be constructed. Notably, the Council has at hand a new instrument, the universal periodic review of the fulfilment of the human rights obligations by each State, which will need to be further refined by the Council in the months to come. Moreover, the Council assumes and will subsequently review all mandates, functions and responsibilities of the Commission in order to maintain a system of special procedures, expert advice and a complaint procedure. Again, this review needs to be completed within one year. As the Council would meet more regularly throughout the year, preparations for the post-19 June sessions will also have to be initiated soon.
In addition, the Council should strive to avoid any protection gap and to discharge the mandate entrusted to it by the General Assembly vis-à-vis all rights holders. As such, and this is a shared responsibility, it will be essential to avoid falling into the trap of spending more time discussing procedure than substance. The Council ought to address at its first meeting several issues in that respect, even if only on an interim basis, including the extension of special procedure mandates and terms of office of mandate-holders, the consideration of the reports from the intergovernmental open-ended working groups, the fate of the 1503 procedure and that of the Sub-Commission and its own mechanisms.
Most urgently, however, we must put in place a process that will enable the future members of the Council and all participants to clarify many of the technicalities involved in the preparations of the first meeting and to respond to the numerous questions arising in this context. Our exchange of views today therefore should first and foremost serve to clarify the process that will lead to the 19th of June and the first Council meeting. The purpose is certainly not for the Secretariat to direct discussions, but on the contrary, to listen to the comments and reactions from delegations and participants in this respect.
Today's session is informal in the true sense of the word - all participants, who are seated here freely, are at liberty to speak as they wish, and in the order in which they ask for the floor. I hope that this setting will provide a fertile ground for constructive suggestions for the way forward on the pressing decisions that have to be taken in the lead-up to the Council's first meeting.