…or at least, it did. In the early 1950s, as diplomats in New York sat down to negotiate what would become the two international human rights covenants, Syria’s delegation to the General Assembly’s Third Committee was in the vanguard of efforts to arm the UN’s human rights machinery with stronger implementation mechanisms to ‘pierce the veil of national sovereignty’* that …
On 23rd July, in view of the on-going crisis in Gaza, the United Nations Human Rights Council (‘the Council’) convened a Special Session on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. The meeting – the 21st Special Session since the Council was established in 2006 – was called by twenty-two members of the Council, namely …
On 20th March 2014 the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) attempted to hold a minute of silence in the UN Human Rights Council’s chamber in memory of Cao Shunli. Ms Cao was arrested on 14th September 2013 as she attempted to board a flight to Geneva. A human rights defender in China, Ms Cao was en route to the …
For the first time since the Council’s five-year review in 2011, the 26th session of the Human Rights Council that ended on 27th June saw the health and impact of the Special Procedures mechanism move to the centre of the political stage. States could not resist continuing to add new Special Procedure mandates – the 26th session saw members create a 51st active …
Human Rights Council President Baudelaire Ndong Ella presents flowers to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay at the close of the Human Rights Council’s 26th Session. Quick Summary The 26th Session of the Human Rights Council was held from 10th – 27th June 2014. During the session the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay, …
One of the clearest conclusions drawn from the joint URG-Brookings Institution research project on the effectiveness and the future of Special Procedures was that, despite regular reform efforts over the past two decades, follow-up on the implementation of recommendations made by Special Procedures remains ‘negligible’. In interviews conducted for the URG-Brookings Policy Report, numerous mandate-holders acknowledged that ‘follow-up on implementation remains one of our weakest links’. Why is this the case? A sceptic could …
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein This week UN Member States will consider the “zero draft” of goals and targets entitled ‘Introduction and Proposed Goals and Targets on Sustainable Development for the Post 2015 Development Agenda” which has been …
The United Nations Human Rights Council emerged in response to the failures of the former Commission on Human Rights to effectively implement the rich normative framework of human rights standards that most members of the international community have committed themselves to. Our human rights architecture in 2014 appears to be both solid and comprehensive: The Universal Declaration on Human Rights …
The principle of sovereign equality of States, enshrined in the UN Charter, recognises that all States are equal irrespective of their size, wealth, population or strength. Article 4 of General Assembly resolution 60/251, establishing the Human Rights Council, makes clear that the work of the Council shall be guided by ‘the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, constructive international …
Imagine waking up one morning to be told by a man from the government that new laws mean the street your family has lived on for generations is being sold to developers. Your land is to be ‘converted’ into flats in the name of national economic development; bulldozers will soon be moving in to flatten your house and rip up …
