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.’ …
What were the main developments, achievements and flash-points at the Human Rights Council in 2022? What were the Council’s principle outputs and what kind of impact did the body and its mechanisms have on the on-the-ground enjoyment of human rights? Did members of the Council cooperate with the international human rights mechanisms, and with OHCHR, over the past twelve months? …
On 11 October 2022, the UN General Assembly (GA) in New York convened to elect new members of the Human Rights Council for the term 2023-2025. As soon as the votes were cast and members elected, diplomats and civil society representatives, as always, began to ask themselves whether the newly composed Council (which will sit from 1 January next year) …
Quick summary The 50th regular session of the Human Rights Council ( HRC50 ) was held from Monday 13 June to Friday 8 July 2022. The Human Rights Council marked its 50th session through a high-level interactive discussion that provided stakeholders an opportunity to reflect on the achievements made and the lessons learned since its 1st session ( concept note – video ). On …
On April 21, 2022, Ambassador Federico Villegas of Argentina, the President of the Human Rights Council, gave a lecture at the New School in downtown New York, on the place of human rights in the UN system. Although he touched on a variety of themes, a key point was that human rights is integral to – and should be better …
An independent analysis of the High-Level Segment of the Human Rights Council The High-Level Segment of the 49th session of the Human Rights Council , held from February 28 to March 3 2022, saw the active participation of more than 120 world leaders, including six heads or deputy heads of State, five heads or deputy heads of Government, and 107 ministers or vice-ministers. In the statements delivered …
What were the main developments, achievements and flash-points at the Human Rights Council in 2021? What were the Council’s principle outputs and what kind of impact did the body and its mechanisms have on the on-the-ground enjoyment of human rights? Did members of the Council cooperate with the international human rights mechanisms, and with OHCHR, over the past twelve months? …
On 10 August, the United States Senate approved the $1 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that had been proposed and supported by President Biden as the first phase in his Build Back Better agenda. The bill will be the largest long-term investment in American infrastructure in nearly a century, and is expected to make the American economy ‘more sustainable, resilient and just.’ The White House stated that …
Diplomatic tensions between Canada and China have been on the rise for a number of years, particularly since the arrest in 2018 of Huawei CEO Meng Wanzhou by the Canadian authorities on behalf of the US. The Chinese response was swift and brutal – two Canadians were detained in China for ‘endangering national security.’ In late June, those tensions spilled …
In her first address to the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) Third Committee as High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2018, Michelle Bachelet urged States to remember that ‘the human rights system is not a Cassandra, correctly predicting crises yet unable to prevent them. It is a force for prevention. When it is backed by the political will of key …
