Consultation of the Working Group on the review of mandates and mechanisms to prepare for HRC session 2

The working group on review of mandates and mechanisms held its last consultation before the 2nd session of the Human Rights Council on Friday 15th September in the presence of President de Alba. The President wanted the approval of delegates in terms of the changes he envisioned to make to the modalities for the 2nd session of HRC (not precedent practice for future session):

• The Chairperson of the Treaty Bodies will not have a time slot (since they had time to report during the first session, it was not necessary in this coming session)
• NGOs will not have the opportunity to make statements, after country mandate independent experts/rapporteurs report to the 2nd session. The President and some delegates proposed to have no NGO participation for these reports, the EU,Peru, United States, Australia were firmly against this proposal. However, NGOs will have an opportunity to make statements after thematic mandate reports.
  Note:
  OP11 states that standard practice of NGO participation during HRC (both thematic and country mandates) concurs with Commission practice, therefore China suggested that the Secretariat take up that question. Due to the time limit the President will convene informal consultations on this subject, until then NGO will not have the possibility to participate after country mandate report during this coming session.
• President de Alba sent a letter to the GA putting forward his wish that the HRC reports directly to the GA and he wanted to know delegates’ positions on this matter:
  EU, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, CH, Canada and Jordan were for HRC as a subsidiary body of GA to report directly to GA.
  China, Egypt, Cuba, Russia, Iran and Pakistan preferred to go to the 3rd Committee (section for Human Rights) and then GA.

Czechoslovakia Ambassador took the floor as the facilitator of the WG and passed out a draft outline of relevant issue to take in consideration for the review. Very little progress was made in this working group, no concrete and specific statements were made.

• EU proposed to divide report of special procedures throughout the year in the different sessions in order for each report to get an hour for consideration and dialogue.
• Chile asked for the newly established Coordinating Committee to be present at the coming session
• Nepal preferred to integrate new issues of concern to existing mandates (instead of creating new ones)
• Indonesia, China and Pakistan preferred HRC to directly elect mandate holders
• Iran pushed for regular review of mandates.

Chair/facilitator concluded that 5 more WG sessions would be convened between the coming HRC session and the next one in December.