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Summary: Promising Progress toward UN Human Rights
Council in New Draft for UN Reform Summit,
but Important to Ensure Civil Society
Participation in Continued Reform Process.
[VIENNA, 27 July 2005] - The International Helsinki Federation for Human
Rights (IHF) hails the revised draft outcome document of the UN reform
summit due to take place in September as a promising step toward the
creation of a new UN Human Rights Council. The revised draft outcome
document, which was released by the president of the General Assembly
on Friday, is in many respects an improvement upon on the first draft and
has the potential to serve as a basis for further constructive deliberations
on this issue. To ensure the credibility and value of the continued reform
process, however, it is imperative that civil society actors be granted the
opportunity to participate throughout the process.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan first proposed the establishment of a
new, standing UN Human Rights Council in his report In Larger Freedom,
which was published in March of this year. This Council would replace the
discredited UN Commission on Human Rights. Along with other proposals
for UN reform, the proposal to create a Human Rights Council will be
considered at a special high-level meeting of the General Assembly
scheduled for 14-16 September 2005. In the period leading up to this
meeting, member states will continue to discuss various reform proposals,
focusing on the provisions included in the revised draft outcome document.
The revised draft outcome document endorses the creation of a Human
Rights Council as a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly. However, it
also requires that the General Assembly reassess the status of the new
body within five years to decide whether to transform it into a principal UN
organ. A decision to elevate the status of the new body into that of a main
UN body would be very much in keeping with one of the overriding aims of
the ongoing UN reform, namely to grant equal weight to human rights,
security and development issues in the work of the world organization.
According to the revised draft outcome document, the members of the
Human Rights Council will be elected by two thirds majority of the General
Assembly with due regard given to both the principle of regional balance
and the contributions of member states to “the promotion and protection
of human rights.” The draft also insists that those elected to the
body “undertake to abide by human rights standards in their respect,
protection and promotion of human rights.” While the IHF welcomes these
indications that the human rights commitment of individual members states
will be taken into consideration in determining the composition of the new
body, the IHF urges for more decisive language in this regard. Member
states seeking election to the Human Rights Council should demonstrate
genuine commitment to advancing human rights and make tangible efforts
to ensure and improve human rights protection in their countries. To this
end, member states could, for example, be expected to make public
pledges indicating their intention to ratify major human rights treaties and
protocols that they have not yet ratified, to comply with their reporting
obligations under such treaties and to cooperate fully with UN and other
relevant human rights mechanisms.
The revised draft outcome document spells out a number of different
functions for the Human Rights Council, such as discussing various human
rights themes, addressing urgent human rights situations, facilitating
international cooperation in the field of human rights protection, promoting
the mainstreaming of human rights within the UN system and developing
international human rights law. The IHF supports granting the new body a
broad mandate that will enable it to deal with contemporary human rights
challenges in a comprehensive way. To be able to adequately fulfill all of its
tasks, the Human Rights Council should meet regularly throughout the
year, and whenever necessary between sessions. It should also have
clearly defined procedures for monitoring and following up on the
implementation of its resolutions and recommendations.
As a separate task, the draft document states, the Human Rights Council
will have the power to evaluate the performance of all member states with
respect to all their human rights obligations. The IHF favors the
introduction of such a review mechanism but believes that it needs to be
flexible and take account of the fact that the severity of human rights
problems vary greatly between states. Additionally, the review mechanism
should make use of objective and transparent evaluation criteria, rely on a
broad range of information sources and assess the full scale of human
rights. As noted in the draft document, it is essential to ensure that the
review mechanism does not duplicate the reporting procedures under the
UN treaty bodies but rather serves to complement them. It is also
important that those states that are elected to the Human Rights Council
are evaluated during their term of membership, preferably at the beginning
of this period.
The revised draft outcome document further advocates the preservation of
features that are widely acknowledged to be assets of the existing
Commission on Human Rights, including the system of special procedures
and the arrangements made for consultations with non-governmental
organizations. The IHF fully endorses these recommendations. The IHF
would, however, prefer that the existing arrangements are not merely
maintained, but further strengthened with the creation of the Human
Rights Council. This could be achieved, for example, by granting additional
resources to the special representatives and experts, who carry out their
functions on a part-time basis and without remuneration, and by creating
additional opportunities for non-governmental organizations to interact
with the Human Rights Council.
In a final provision concerning the proposal to set up a Human Rights
Council, the revised draft outcome document calls for post-summit
consultations to be held among member states for the purpose of
adopting, by the end of 2005, the modalities, functions, procedures and
working methods of the new body, and for arranging to transfer from the
existing Commission to the new body. While the IHF welcomes the
establishment of a clear timeline for the process of deciding reform details
that are not agreed upon during the September summit, it would like to
emphasize the importance of ensuring that civil society groups are granted
opportunities to participate in this process. Excluding non-governmental
organizations from the final stage of the reform process would be
tantamount to marginalizing key stakeholders and preventing them from
providing valuable input into this long-awaited reform effort.
For further information:
Henriette Schroeder, IHF Press Officer, +43-676-725 48 29
See also the IHF website, which offers a special feature on the efforts to
establish a UN Human Rights Council, at http://www.ihf-
hr.org/cms/cms.php?sec_id=47