On 12 October 2023, the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) made history at the Human Rights Council. Not only did they present for adoption their first joint initiative at the Council since its establishment, but they also presented the first item 10 resolution (A/HRC/RES/54/33) that seeks the establishment of a regional office of the Office of …
On 10 October 2023, the UN General Assembly (GA) convened in New York to elect new members of the Human Rights Council for the term 2024-2026. Albania, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominican Republic, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, Malawi, and the Netherlands were duly elected. As soon as the votes were cast and the new members announced, …
Quick summary The 54th regular session of the Human Rights Council (HRC54) was held from Monday 11th September to Friday 13th October 2023. On 11 September, the High Commissioner Volker Türk opened HRC54 by presenting a global update on the situation of human rights in the world. In his intervention, the High Commissioner focused on the links between development and …
On 10 October 2023, the UN General Assembly (GA) convened in New York to elect 15 new members of the Human Rights Council for the term 2024-2026. One key question arising from the election, as every year, is whether voting members of the GA were guided when casting their ballots by bilateral considerations or by human rights principles – in …
The United Nations’ top human rights body is facing a test. Its outcome will have major implications for its credibility. This October, the Human Rights Council (HRC) might readmit Russia, which it suspended just more than a year ago, as a member. At the opening of the next UN General Assembly session, all 193 UN member states, including 54 African states, …
We are living in ‘an age of massive concentration of wealth, and unprecedented inequalities,’ an ‘abyss [has opened] between rich and poor [that] harms everyone.’ With these words, pronounced in his opening global update at the 54th session of the Human Rights Council, High Commissioner Volker Türk cast the spotlight on inequality, an issue that has been gaining ground in the human rights …
September will mark one year since Volker Türk’s appointment as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, after his predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, chose not to continue for a second term (no High Commissioner has served out two full terms). It is fair to say that the choice of Türk, widely predicted by UN insiders due to his close relationship with the …
Quick summary The 53rd regular session of the Human Rights Council (HRC53 ) was held from Monday 19 June to Friday 14 July 2023. On 11 and 12 July 2023, an urgent debate was convened to ‘discuss the alarming rise in premeditated and public acts of religious hatred as manifested by recurrent desecration of the Holy Quran in some European and other countries.’ …
On 11th July 2023, during the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council, which opened on June 19, 2023, an urgent debate was convened to ‘discuss the alarming rise in premeditated and public acts of religious hatred as manifested by recurrent desecration of the Holy Quran in some European and other countries.’ The urgent debate was requested in an official …
On 11 July Ambassador Alexander Maisuradze, Permanent Representative of Georgia to the UN in Geneva, delivered a cross-regional statement at the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council calling on the body to assume a leadership role in the global reinvigoration of democracy. The statement, led by a group of main sponsors from Eastern Europe (Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine), …
