HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL TO HOLD ITS RESUMED FORTY-THIRD REGULAR SESSION FROM 15 TO 19 JUNE 2020

The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold its resumed forty-third regular session, which was suspended on 13 March because of COVID-19, from 15 to 19 June at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The session will open around 11 a.m. on Monday, 15 June under the presidency of Ambassador Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger of Austria.  An organizational meeting will be held at 10 a.m. 

On Monday, the Council will hold general debates on its agenda items on human rights bodies and mechanisms, and on the Universal Periodic Review.  In the afternoon, it will consider reports by the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories, followed by a general debate on that agenda item, which will conclude on Tuesday, 16 June.  The Council will then consider the report of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, to be followed by a general debate on follow-up to and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which will conclude on Wednesday, 17 June. 

The Council will then take up its agenda item on technical assistance and capacity building, under which it will hold an enhanced interactive dialogue to discuss the human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during which it will hear from the team of international experts on the situation in Kasai and from the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  It will also hold on Wednesday and on Thursday, 18 June interactive dialogues on the situation in Mali, Ukraine, Libya and Afghanistan, as well as a high-level interactive dialogue on the situation in the Central African Republic.  The Council will then consider a report by the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights, to be followed by a general debate on technical assistance and capacity building.

On Thursday, 18 June in the afternoon and Friday, 19 June, the Council will take action on decisions and resolutions and will then conclude the session.

Further information on the forty-third session, including an annotated agenda, a detailed programme of work, and the reports to be presented, can be found here.  Meetings coverage summaries on the first three weeks of the session can be found here.

Since the suspension of the forty-third session on 13 March, the Council has held several informal virtual discussions, including one held on 9 April with the High Commissioner for Human Rights, focused on the implications of the COVID-19 crisis on human rights around the world, and another that brought together representatives of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures mandate holders on 30 April for a discussion centered on the action carried out by Special Procedure mandate holders in the context of COVID-19.

The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system, made up of 47 States which are responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe.  The Council was created by the United Nations General Assembly on 15 March 2006 with the main purpose of addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them.

The composition of the Human Rights Council at its forty-third session is as follows :

Afghanistan, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chile, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Eritrea, Fiji, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Libya, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mexico, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Senegal, Slovakia, Somalia, Spain, Sudan, Togo, Ukraine, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The President of the Human Rights Council in 2020 is Ambassador Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations Office at Geneva.  The Council’s four Vice Presidents are Nasir Ahmad Andisha of Afghanistan, Socorro Flores Liera of Mexico, Juraj Podhorský of Slovakia and Yackoley Kokou Johnson of Togo.

The meetings of the resumed session are expected to start in the Assembly Hall, and will move towards the end of the week to room XX. 

HRC20.037E