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The members of the United Nations Human Rights Council must be careful to avoid becoming divided between developed and developing countries, Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned today as he urged them to embrace the universality of rights. In a message to the third session of the Council, scheduled to begin in Geneva, Mr. Annan said it was vital that the Council’s 47 members “are willing and able to build coalitions based on principle.” He said: “Do not let yourselves be split along the fault line between North and South… as your colleagues have done in some other parts of the system, with results inimical to progress. “States that are truly determined to uphold human rights must be prepared to take action even when that means, as it sometimes will, giving offence to other States within their own region.” Mr. Annan said it is crucial that the Council preserves and strengthens what he called its “crown jewel” – the system of Special Procedures, or rapporteurs, independent experts and working groups tasked with examining a specific area of human rights. “It has long since been recognized in theory, and increasingly also in practice, that the rule of law cannot be left to the discretion of governments, no matter how democratically elected they may be.” The Secretary-General said the area most in need of innovation is the organization of the universal periodic review, a peer review mechanism. “This transformative idea was certainly not intended to impede or discourage the Council from bringing massive and gross violations of human rights to the world’s attention as and when they occur,” he said. “It was intended to give concrete form to our shared principles of universality, non-selectivity, objectivity and cooperation. The world looks to the Council to develop a review mechanism that lives up to those ideals.” Turning to the Middle East, Mr. Annan noted that the Council – which replaced the discredited Commission on Human Rights earlier this year – has held all three of its special sessions so far on the Arab-Israeli conflict. “I hope, however, that the Council will take care to handle this issue in an impartial way, and not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of others where there are equally grave or even graver violations. “There are surely other situations, besides the one in the Middle East, which would merit scrutiny by a special session of this Council. I would suggest that Darfur is a glaring case in point.”