The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, makes his inaugural address at the opening of the 27th session of the Human Rights Council.

Quick Summary

• The 27th regular session of the Human Rights Council was held from 8th – 26th September 2014.
• At the opening of the session the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Zeid bin Ra’ad, gave his inaugural address, the text of which can be found here.
• 10 panel discussions were held during the session.
• 72 reports under the various items on the Council’s agenda were considered.
• The outcomes of the UPR working groups of the following 14 countries were adopted: Albania, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Norway, Portugal, Qatar.
• More than 185 side events were held by states and/or NGOs during the session.
• 1 new Special Procedure mandate was created: Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights.
• 36 texts were considered by the Council: 32 resolutions and 4 President’s statements. Of these, 28 were adopted by consensus (78%), and 8 by a recorded vote (22%).
• 19 of the texts adopted by the Council (53%) had Programme Budget Implications (PBI) and 15 required new appropriations not included in previous Programme Budgets. The total costs of the newly mandated activities amounted to $3,965,900.
• With the conclusion of the 27th session, the number of texts adopted by the Human Rights Council in 2014 totalled 112 – 42 in March, 34 in June and 36 in September. This represents a 5% increase over the number of texts adopted in 2013 (107), and is the largest number adopted in a single year in the Council’s history.

 

Panel Discussions

A total of 10 panel discussions were held during the 27th session, an unprecedented number for a September session of the Council – for comparison, the 24th session in September 2013 had only 3.

The panels were on the following topics (click for OHCHR meeting summaries):

• Panel discussion on history teaching and memorialisation processes; (Agenda Item 3)
• Panel discussion on the protection of the human rights of persons deprived of their liberty; (Agenda Item 3)
• Panel discussion on the right to privacy in the digital age; (Agenda Item 3)
• Panel discussion on the protection of the family and its members; (Agenda Item 3)
• Annual full-day discussion on integration of a gender perspective; (Agenda Item 8)
• Half-day panel discussion on the promotion and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples in disaster risk reduction, and prevention and preparedness initiatives; (Agenda Item 3)
• Panel discussion on the role of prevention in the promotion of human rights; (Agenda Item 3)
• Panel discussion on the use of remotely piloted aircraft or armed drones in counter-terrorism and military operations; (Agenda Item 3)
• Panel discussion on accelerating global efforts to end violence against children; (Agenda Item 3)
• Panel discussion on the human rights situation in South Sudan. (Agenda Item 10)

When the 27th session’s 10 panel discussions are added to the 5 from the 26th session and the 8 from the 25th session, the total is the highest number for a single year in the Council’s history, by a considerable margin:

With the exception of perennial events, such as the annual full-day discussion on the integration of a gender perspective, convening a panel discussion at the Council almost always requires additional resources not already included in the UN’s biannual Programme Budget. The total cost of the 27th session’s 9 non-recurrent panel discussions was $545,800.

Despite the considerable expense incurred in the organisation of the session’s 10 panel discussions, participation by Council member states was mixed. No member state delivered a statement (on its own behalf) at all 10 of the panel discussions, and only 8 member states (17%) made statements at more than half of them. 8 member states made no statement at any of the panels (although statements were made on behalf of groups of which they were a part).

It is also notable that 9 of the 10 panels were on general thematic issues, and 8 of them under a single agenda item – namely, item 3.

Panel discussions have proven to be the most popular of the new working methods introduced by the Council’s Institution Building Package (resolution 5/1). However, the growth in their use has placed an increasingly heavy strain on the Council, both in terms of their cost and in terms of the time demands they place on the Council’s agenda and programme of work. Given the disproportionate emphasis of recent panels on thematic issues under agenda item 3, combined with the seemingly limited interest/capacity of member states in actively participating in all of them, it may be time for states to reflect on the value added of these discussions, and whether the issues in question could be better pursued through other avenues.

 

Special Procedures

Interactive Dialogues

15 mandate holders (11 thematic, 4 country-specific) presented annual reports to the Council (all of which are available here). Due to the increasingly large number of thematic mandates, most thematic Special Procedures presented their reports in ‘clusters’ of two.

After presenting their report (during this session each mandate-holder took on average 14 minutes to present what is in effect the result of a year‘s work), Special Procedures participate in so-called ‘interactive dialogues’ on the report’s content. During the interactive dialogue, each Council member is afforded 3 minutes to speak (in the case of clustered dialogues they have to share this time between the two mandates), and observer states and NGOs 2 minutes. Mandate-holders will then respond to questions and comments (at this session they spent, on average, only 5 minutes doing so) and, at the end, offer concluding remarks (on average 9 minutes each). In other words, in common with other sessions of the Council, interactive dialogues during the 27th session were ‘neither interactive nor really a dialogue’ (see URG-Brookings Institution, Special Procedures: Determinants of Influence, p.31).

The 11 interactive dialogues of the 27th session saw 116 states delivering statements (in their individual capacity), of which 28% were from the African Group, 23% from Asia Pacific Group, 20% from WEOG, 15% from EEG and 14% from GRULAC. Only one member state of the Council – Morocco – engaged (on an individual basis) in all 11 of the interactive dialogues, though the EU also engaged (as a group) during each discussion. On the other hand, 39 members of the Council participated in less than half of the interactive dialogues, and 5 did not participate in any (although again these figures should be tempered by the knowledge that, for example, African members will often speak through the African Group and European members through the EU).

There was also significant variation between interactive dialogues. For example, while 54 delegations made statements during the clustered dialogue with the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by older persons and the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, only 18 delegations spoke during the clustered dialogue with the Working Group on the use of mercenaries and the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. There were similar differences for country-specific mandates. For example, 35 delegations spoke during the interactive dialogue with the Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Sudan, while only 16 spoke during the dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Cambodia.

Appointment of New Mandate Holders

On 26th September, the President announced that the appointment of new mandate holders would be postponed until October, until which time the outgoing mandate holders are expected to continue in their roles. This was, he said, a result of the fact that his ‘efforts to achieve consensus’ on the list of mandate holders ‘unfortunately did not bear the expected fruits.’

This is the second time this year that the Council has been unable to move to appoint new mandate-holders – in March (during the 25th session), the appointment of 17 mandate-holders was similarly postponed, eventually occurring in May. On this occasion (i.e. at the 27th session), the postponement was due to state disagreements over the suitability of the candidate recommended by the Consultative Group for the mandate on the situation of human rights in Sudan. The appointment of all 7 new mandate-holders is now expected to take place in October.

Statements under Item 5

In a statement delivered under Item 5, India repeated concerns over the lack of geographic and cultural diversity among Special Procedures mandate holders, and expressed concern over the ‘increasing politicisation and controversies surrounding the selection and appointment’ of experts. India stressed that ‘lobbying by states,’ on Special Procedures appointments ‘should be avoided.’ This echoed concerns raised during the 25th and 26th sessions (see URG Insights article Health of the Special Procedure system moves to the centre of the Council’s agenda).

New Mandate

On 26th September, a new Special Procedures mandate was established on ‘the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights’. NAM-sponsored resolutions on ‘unilateral coercive measures’ have been passed annually at the Council since its inception in 2006 (see URG Resolutions Portal). In recent years, they have requested OHCHR to submit a thematic report and to hold two workshops (in 2012 and 2013). The decision this session to establish a new mandate was opposed vehemently by the EU and the US, the latter suggesting the new mandate would ‘divert attention and limited resources’ away from the Council’s ‘important work.’ In response, Cuba (one of the sponsors) identified a ‘desperate attempt’ on the part of the opponents of the new mandate ‘to avoid having their behaviour called into question.’ The draft resolution was adopted by a vote (31 for, 14 against, 2 abstentions).

 

Adoption of UPR Working Group Reports

The Human Rights Council (‘the Council’) adopted the reports of Albania, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, each of which was reviewed between 28th April – 9th May 2014 by the UPR Working Group. A total of 2,688 recommendations were made to these 14 countries, out of which 2,075 were accepted in whole or in part and 613 were noted or rejected.

Resolutions, Decisions and President’s Statements

The 27th session of the Council concluded with the adoption of 36 texts: 32 resolutions and 4 President’s statements. This represents an decrease of 10% from the number of texts adopted at the 24th session in September 2013. However, when combined with the 34 texts adoped at the 26th session and 42 texts adopted at the 25th session, the total number of texts for 2014 is 112, a 5% increase from the number adopted in 2013 and the largest number for a single year in the Council’s history.

Around 22% of the texts were adopted by a recorded vote.

31 (86%) of the texts adopted by the Council were thematic in nature, while only 5 (14%) dealt with country-specific situations. Of these, 1 addressed human rights violations (under agenda item 4) and 4 sought to protect human rights through technical assistance and capacity building (under item 10).

6 of the texts adopted by the Council (3 resolutions and 3 President’s statements) were wholly new, in that the Council had never adopted a resolution under the same title in a previous session. These were the resolutions on realising the right to education of every girl, the right of the child to engage in play and recreational activities, and equal participation in political and public affairs, and the President’s statements on the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the rights of migrants at sea, and the ebola epidemic.

19 of the adopted texts (53%) had Programme Budget Implications (PBI), requiring appropriations of $3,965,900 not previously covered by the UN regular budget.