REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which also heard from Spokespersons for the International Labour Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the International Organization for Migration. Spokespersons for the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development were also on hand to answer questions.
Human Rights Council
Ms. Heuzé said the Human Rights Council had begun the work of its eleventh session (2-18 June) this morning, hearing a number of presentations by Special Rapporteurs. The order of the day had been sent to journalists. There were also two press conferences organized with Special Procedures of the Council that would be presenting their reports this week. Today, John Ruggie, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights and transnational corporations, would talk to journalists at 4.30 p.m. in Press Room I. Tomorrow, Leandro Despouy, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, would talk about his report at 11 a.m., also in Press Room I.
The second big subject was the other major meeting which was to start tomorrow – the ninety-eighth session of the International Labour Conference, which would be held from 3 to 19 June 2009 at the Palais des Nations – and Ms. Heuzé gave the floor to their spokesperson to provide details.
International Labour Conference
Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization (ILO) said that available in the room was the programme of the Committee of the Whole, which would begin its work tomorrow following the opening of the session, to consider all the issues touching on the global crisis and its impact. Also available were a press release on the opening of the Conference, and a list of 12 heads of State and Government who had confirmed their participation in the ILO Summit on the Global Jobs Crisis, which would be held from 15 June through the morning of the 17th. (Among those confirmed were the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.)
Kari Tapiola, Executive Director of the ILO Standards and Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Sector and spokesperson for this year’s Conference, noted that this year marked the ninetieth anniversary of the ILO, and so that would be one of the issues that would be underlined in the opening session tomorrow. The Conference was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, regular meetings in the multilateral system, with between 3,000 and 4,000 participants expected to attend. As of yesterday, 151 ministers or deputy ministers would be participating from ILO’s 183 member countries.
The agenda of this year’s Conference had been reorganized at short notice because of the economic and financial crisis, and would now concentrate on the employment and the social policy aspects of the crisis, Mr. Tapiola said. The Director-General had already presented a report which would be the basis of the discussions at two levels: at the plenary, but also in the Special Committee of the Whole on Crisis Responses previously mentioned.
The Committee of the Whole would first hear from experts, and then would draft an outcome document that the Conference would be invited to adopt. It was expected to finish its work on the outcome by the end of next week. In response to a query, Mr. Tapiola noted that the desire of the Governing Body was not to have this be an academic exercise or a general discussion, but to have an outcome which would provide a sort of inventory or check list of issues that Governments, employers and workers should pay attention to in times of financial and economic crisis, outlining the tools they should use to counter the crisis. The question they had to answer was how to shorten the lead-time for employment to recover once the financial recovery started.
Mr. Tapiola announced that there would be a special sitting on forced labour in Myanmar on Saturday, 6 June. Pressed for details, he said the meeting was based on the 1998 Commission of Inquiry report on forced labour in Myanmar. It was expected that the Labour Minister of Myanmar would attend. There was no question of expelling a country from the ILO; there had, however, been two decisions taken in 1999 and 2000, limiting Myanmar’s participation. ILO’s technical cooperation with the Government was limited to the specific question of forced labour, and Myanmar was not invited to any ILO activities except for the Conference and discussions held on that country held by ILO’s Governing Body. There would be a report by the ILO liaison officer in Myanmar on the latest situation, as well as on the way in which the complaint mechanism functioned. Annexed to that report would be reports that had been presented to the Governing Body over the past year – including the report of a mission he had conducted to Myanmar at the end of February.
In addition, the Committee on HIV/AIDS was starting a two-year project on the elaboration of a recommendation on how to deal with HIV/AIDS in the workplace. The first discussion would take place this year; next year there would be a second discussion, following which the recommendation was expected to be adopted in June 2010. There was also a committee discussing gender equity and gender issues, which would start tomorrow and finish on 10 June, issuing its own conclusions, some of which would be integrated into the overall conclusions of the Conference, Mr. Tapiola added.
As to child labour, which a journalist had asked about, there would be a special section of the plenary devoted to the issue of child labour on the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labour, on 12 June. As it was also the tenth anniversary of ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour, there would also be speeches on that topic, Mr. Tapiola said.
Geneva Activities
Turning to other meetings in Geneva this week, Ms. Heuzé noted that tomorrow, Wednesday, 3 June there would be a High-level Tripartite Meeting between the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations on the theme of preventing conflicts through the strengthening of democratic institutions. The meeting would be held in the Council Chamber starting at 10.30 a.m. Available was the meeting agenda.
Also, on Thursday morning, the Conference on Disarmament would hold a plenary meeting under the presidency of Argentina, which would be largely devoted to organizational issues with a view to implementing the programme of work adopted last week. The Secretary-General’s statement on the end of the impasse in the Conference, which had been published late on Friday, was available at the back of the room.
Air France Disaster / Meteorological Issues
Herbert Puempel, of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), fielding questions about meteorological issues associated with the Air France disaster, noted that the region where the aircraft had been reported lost was one that was typically affected by the Inner Tropical Conversion Zone – a region that very often had deep thunderstorms that reached very high levels, and therefore weather was always considered a possible contributory factor in any accidents [in that area].
Undoubtedly, a commission of inquiry would be put together. WMO would be on standby to provide any extra information or support to Brazil, but typically these inquiries were carried out by the State responsible for the airspace. All evidence was that the location of the accident was still within Brazilian airspace. Information over the ocean was typically limited to aircraft reports and satellite information, as it was not currently economically or technically feasible to extend weather radar coverage to a large distance out over ocean, Mr. Puempel stressed.
Regarding information received by WMO from two Lufthansa aircraft in the vicinity that night, Mr. Puempel, underlining first that it was unconfirmed, explained that there was a WMO aircraft meteorological data relay programme (AMDAR), which automatically transmitted reports from aircraft. There were indications that there were two aircraft in the area, equipped to report temperature and wind information – but they were not equipped to report turbulence information. So, there was some limited information available. Moreover, it was important to realize that severe thunderstorms were typically very localized and short lived. So any report that was a couple of hours away in time or a couple of hundred kilometres away in space might not give a very good impression of what happened at the time of the accident.
Asked to confirm that lightening alone would not have brought down the craft, Mr. Puempel said that typically all aircraft were equipped to fly in inclement weather situations. The basic rule was that it was very, very improbable that any single cause would cause a crash. Any major airline incident was usually due to a whole concatenation of events. But it was much too early to come to a conclusion.
Crisis in Pakistan
Ron Redmond of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that thousands of people had taken advantage of the lifting of the curfew over the weekend to flee from their villages and towns in the Swat Valley to reach safer areas in Mardan, Swabi and Charsadda districts of the North West Frontier Province, although it was difficult to put a specific number on that flow. To respond to the new influx, UNHCR, its partners and the provincial authorities had established two new camps in Charsadda and Peshawar districts. Sugar Mill camp, in Charsadda had received 2,400 individuals on Monday and more were expected today. Some that arrived yesterday told UNHCR teams that they had hidden in their basements for a month and had been about to run out of food when the curfew had finally been lifted last Saturday and Sunday and they had been told to evacuate the area. Lack of medicine and food were cited as the major problems for those stranded in the conflict zone. Many said they had been transported out of the zone by government-arranged trucks.
The number of those displaced was still being verified. UNHCR had worked with the Government on “fast track” registration data, but that had to be double checked and verified. Mr. Redmond expected an updated figure this afternoon, anticipated to be somewhere around 2 million, possibly more.
Asked specifically about the tribal areas in the southwest, Mr. Redmond said that UNHCR had heard over the weekend of figures of somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 on the move out of Waziristan. That was all the information he had at present.
Humanitarian Situation in Iraq
Although the humanitarian situation in Iraq had been largely out of the spotlight recently, UNHCR remained extremely concerned about meeting the needs of millions of uprooted people both within and outside the country, Mr. Redmond continued. UNHCR had had a donor meeting on Thursday at which UNHCR’s Middle East bureau chief had advised Governments of UNHCR concerns. While overall security conditions were improving, they were not yet sustainable enough to encourage massive returns. There were still well over 1.5 million Iraqis outside the country and another 2 million internally displaced. Although some returns had taken place, many had not been safe or sustainable. In UNHCR’s opinion, Iraqis should not be forced back, as it would be detrimental to their safety and would also negatively affect the fragile absorption capacity of Iraq. The Government needed to make further progress in the implementation of its national policy on displacement and return and specifically needed to take decisions on land allocation and property restitution and compensation, as well as to launch a major housing and rehabilitation programme.
In addition to those challenges, UNHCR remained handicapped by a shortage of funds and heavy security arrangements which hampered their ability to deliver assistance, Mr. Redmond said. UNHCR had steadily built up a presence in 14 of Iraq’s 17 provinces, but those efforts would remain piecemeal if not integrated into a national government-led framework aimed at addressing the myriad social and economic challenges. On the funding side, UNHCR’s $299 million Iraq operation for 2009 was only 48 per cent funded. Morover, outside Iraq, asylum countries continued to carry a huge burden and were increasingly concerned about what was gradually becoming a protracted refugee situation. They needed and deserved continuing international support. UNHCR reminded the international community that it was far too risky right now to reduce support for or engagement in Iraq at this very fragile phase in its reconstruction.
Asked about a conflicting report by an independent journalist that Iraq’s security situation had actually worsened over the last several months, Mr. Redmond disagreed, saying that if one looked at the overall situation it had improved. He also confirmed for a journalist that UNHCR was continuing its recommendation that Iraqis not be sent back to central Iraq and that individual screening should be done for those from the North and South.
Sri Lanka
Asked about calls by the media and non-governmental organizations for the United Nations to reveal the number of deaths in the no-fire zone, Ms. Heuzé explained that the United Nations did not have exact numbers. Yesterday, the Secretary-General had told the General Assembly that the exact number of civilian victims was not known and had categorically rejected any suggestion that the United Nations had deliberately underestimated any figures. He had added that, in any case, the number of casualties was “unacceptably high”. Ms. Heuzé stressed that the figure given by a number of newspapers had not come from the United Nations and most were not consistent with the information at our disposal.
Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that, as she had informed journalists earlier, the estimates that had circulated within the media at one stage, by the end of April, had been taken from an internal briefing note for donors, which had leaked to the media. That had been an internal estimate based on information that was unverifiable. Once it leaked to the media, that figure was used to further extrapolate. But the United Nations and OCHA had never used that figure.
In response to a journalist’s concern that, despite the highest United Nations official labelling the episode a “bloodbath”, the United Nations had not called for an independent commission of inquiry, Ms. Heuzé countered that that had been officially done. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Navi Pillay, had called for an independent investigation at the opening of the Special Session on Sri Lanka a few days ago in Geneva. As journalists know, the Human Rights Council did not approve it. Also, in a joint statement by the Secretary-General and the Government of Sri Lanka issued at the end of his visit (22 – 23 May), there was a line saying that an inquiry into alleged abuses should be undertaken.
Ms. Heuzé appreciated journalists’ frustration on this issue, which was felt by many members of the international community as a whole. As journalists know, in the Human Rights Council, 29 countries did not want any action or any investigation and very few countries supported the High Commissioner’s proposal.
Ms. Heuzé underscored that the United Nations secretariat should not bear the blame. The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross had both been raising the alarm for some time. The Secretary-General had three times sent high-level representatives to discuss this dramatic situation – including John Holmes, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs on 19 February 2009 and twice Vijay Nambiar, his Chef de Cabinet. But the Sri Lanka authorities had not budged to allow humanitarian access to the civilian population, which was being used as a human shield or taken hostages in the conflict zone.
Global Platform for Disaster Reduction
Brigitte Léoni announced that the second session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction would open in Geneva on 16 June 2009 and run through Friday, 19 June. More than 1,500 participants, drawn from 150 Governments would participate in this biennial event, which would be held at the Geneva International Conference Centre. The Conference would bring together the principal players in the global disaster risk reduction community under the slogan “invest today for a safer tomorrow”, and a key focus at the event would be close scrutiny of the linkages between climate change adaptation, poverty and disaster risk reduction. They had also published a Global Assessment Report, which explained what factors would increase the risk of disasters in the future. The Conference would seek to gain commitments from Governments to invest in disaster risk prevention and develop concrete measures to do so, in particular measures to protect hospitals and schools.
Migration in the Black Sea Region
Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM had published the first in a series of migration profiles on specific countries and regions, with the aim of providing reliable and comparable migration data. This migration profile focused on the Black Sea Region, with an overview of the whole region, and then 12 specific country profiles. The region had been identified as a new frontline in combating threats to international security caused by transnational crime, including human smuggling and human trafficking. It was a region that covered 20 million square kilometres, was home to 350 million people, including 23 million migrants, and, as a whole, was characterized by the movement of persons from, through and to the region. All the 12 countries – Armenia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine – were transit and sending countries.
The report also looked at the role of remittances in the economic development of the region. Recorded at $26.7 billion in 2007, official remittances contributed significantly to the gross domestic product of these countries, with remittances to Moldova accounting for 36.2 per cent of the country's gross domestic product, Ms. Pandya noted.