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Summary: Update on the negotiations on a new Human Rights Council, 19 December 2005.
On Monday 28 October, the President of the General Assembly, Jan Eliasson circulated the Compilation Text on the proposed new Human Rights Council. Negotiations began on 30 November and were initially expected to end on 16 December. However no consensus has yet been reached and some countries want negotiations to be prolonged, possibly even with the setting up of a working group. NGOs would prefer negotiations to conclude as soon as possible, but only if the resolution adopted complies with the set of principles set out in previous NGO Communications to Mr Eliasson and negotiators. Governments have so far had the opportunity to comment on different aspects, such as the preamble to the text, operative sections on the status, mandate and functions, size, membership and composition, rules of procedures, methods of work and transitional arrangements. A more recent compilation text has just been circulated which is more streamlined and reorganised. One key change in the new text is an added paragraph in the preamble acknowledging the important role of NGOs. However some states are still challenging this. Only Iceland, Chile, Lichtenstein and Switzerland think the Council should have equal or better/stronger NGO Participation (see Member States Positions). By the end of last week, negotiations had mainly focused on the Preamble, and sections on status, mandate and function. Mr Eliasson also held an informal briefing session with the NGO community. More information. If, as it is predicted, no resolution is reached by the end of this year, States will have to start preparing for a session of the Commission in March, and therefore NGOs will have to start strategising in early January and push for a substantive agenda. The International Service for Human Rights have been following the negotiations closely and are posting weekly updates on their website. More information is available at the following website: http://www.reformtheun.org, and more specifically about the Human Rights Council here. See also Amnesty International’s pages on the UN reform. CRIN's news section on the UN Commission on Human Rights and its reform