Informal Consultations: 20 January 2006

During Friday's briefing, the President provided a general overview of the issues discussed and urged member states to conclude their negotiations before the Commission on Human Rights began its 62nd session in early March. The nature of this upcoming session remains unclear due to the ongoing negotiations.

The bilateral meetings have focused on a number of key issues including membership, elections, formulation of language on pledges and commitments to human rights, voting procedures for country-specific resolutions, number of sessions/weeks, and the nature of the new membership. In response to concerns that the Council would reflect purely cosmetic reforms, the President highlighted three ways in which significant progress could be achieved: a continued emphasis on cooperation and dialogue as currently reflected in the text, the application of a universal periodic review, and increased frequency in the Council's meetings to address current capacity gaps and time constraints. There was no clear indication of areas in which substantial progress had been made.

Informal Consultations: 24 January 2006

During Tuesday's meeting, member states resumed general discussions on the parts of the text which were not in bold, which included discussions on the following:
• The Council's location and its five year review
• The global thematic review
• The universal periodic review
• The Council's role in the prevention of human rights violations
• Review of special procedures and NGO participation
• The Council's role in reviewing work of the OHCHR
• Maintaining or replacing the Sub-Commission
• The Council's role in making recommendations to the various UN bodies

On the preamble, particular states took issue with the deletion of references to self-determination, while the US again expressed its opposition to specific mention of the right to development.

While the CARICOM countries and others stressed the importance of holding the Council's meetings alternately in New York and Geneva to address the needs of smaller missions, the Brazilian representative highlighted problems with this approach, such as lack of coherency, as experienced under the ECOSOC joint framework. Countries also disagreed as to whether a five year review should take place and if so whether it should look at status, functioning, or both.

The provision for a global thematic review continues to raise concerns for many countries regarding its potentially overburdening financial implications relative to its productive contributions. The issue of a universal periodic review, which has been an important element of the discussions, has posed a number of conceptual problems. While most countries now seem to have accepted some version of such a review, their respective interpretations differ significantly. Pakistan, for example, stressed that if such a review was implemented to address the issue of selectivity, there would need to be guarantees put in place to ensure that countries under review would not be subject to country-specific resolutions. The review would instead serve as a basis for cooperation and dialogue for the purposes of capacity building without specific follow-up mechanisms. Similarly, the Cuban delegate placed an emphasis on developing criteria for passing country-specific resolutions, arguing that the peer review would not be relevant unless it could be linked to the decision-making procedures for adopting country-specific resolutions. For countries at the other end of the spectrum, the universal peer review is meant to play an instrumental role in holding countries accountable to their voluntary human rights commitments. The US has agreed to accept such a review if it receives majority support, provided that new members are reviewed during their term. A more concrete and unified conceptualization of the universal peer review mechanism will determine to what extent it will enhance the Council's work. The current debate on this issue is an indication of the persistent conceptual divide within the General Assembly regarding the Council's main purpose.

Another point of disagreement was on the Council's role in the prevention of human rights violations. While some countries see prevention as a vital element, others have opposed the vague language, arguing that a focus on prevention would be ineffective given that the Council would not have concrete mechanisms for fulfilling this function, which otherwise falls under the responsibilities of the Security Council.

Many countries continue to stress the need to review and rationalize the Commission's system of special procedures and NGO participation, arguing that the special procedures were often unnecessary and redundant and that the role of NGOs needed to be clarified and streamlined to better reflect their "consultative" as opposed to "participatory" role in the Council.

The issue of whether the Council should review the work of the Office of the High Commissioner continues to spark disagreement as some countries maintain their support for this a role, which many feel is both unnecessary and outside the Council's scope.

The current document states that the Council should make recommendations on the promotion and protection of human rights to Member States and the UN system. Various states have taken issue with the current wording, arguing that since the Council will be a subsidiary body of the GA, it should only be explicitly responsible for making recommendations to the GA. The US, on the other hand, would also like to see specific mention of the Security Council, ECOSOC and other organs. Tensions regarding the respective roles of the different UN bodies have intensified after the Security Council passed its resolution ensuring P5 membership on the Peace-building Commission's organizational committee.

Source: Reform The UN