Update: First Members Elected to Human Rights Council!

On May 9 the General Assembly elected 47 members to the much-heralded new Human Rights Council, the body that was created to replace the Commission on Human Rights. The Council will hold its first meeting June 19-30, 2006 in Geneva. To see official submissions and pledges by states that sought to serve on the Council, see http://www.un.org/ga/60/elect/hrc/. A number of states had submitted pledges in which they mentioned commitment to signing/ratifying CEDAW or its Optional Protocol, or lifting reservations they had already established. See, in particular, pledges of Albania, France, Indonesia, Korea, Morocco, Switzerland and Zambia.

According to UN press, “all regions – Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and Other states – obtained or exceeded the required 96-vote majority needed to fill their allocated number of members, except the Eastern European States, where only the Russian Federation, Poland and the Czech Republic won seats on the first ballot, while Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Romania were elected in a second round.” The Council is expected to first meet on June 19 in Geneva. At this point, we have heard that it is likely that the first week will be a high-level segment on substance and the second week will be primarily about procedures for the new Council. The reports of Special Rapporteurs prepared for the Commission on Human Rights session in ‘06 are not expected to be taken up until another Council session later in the year.

Read more about the election at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=18411&Cr=rights&Cr1=council

Human Rights Watch has created a grid that charts the election results. States in yellow were elected to the Council; the numbers in the second column represent the number of votes received.

Amnesty International (AI) developed a chart that outlines key human rights-related criteria and measured these against the pledges of states who had expressed interest in serving on the Council’s first roster. AI calls attention to key elements of the candidates' cooperation with the treaty monitoring bodies and the Special Procedures, including their ratification of key human rights treaties, their submission of reports to the treaty monitoring bodies, the extension of a standing invitation to the Special Procedures, facilitation of visits requested, and their responsiveness to urgent and routine communications. To view AI’s chart and other information on the Human Rights Council, see http://web.amnesty.org/pages/un-index-eng.