HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL HOLDS SPECIAL SESSION ON SITUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN DARFUR

The Human Rights Council will hold its fourth special session on Tuesday, 12 December on the situation of human rights in Darfur.

The special session is being convened following a request by the Ambassador of Finland and has been signed by 33 Member States.

The request for the special session reads as follows: “I hereby request, on behalf of the signatories listed in the enclosed document, that you convene, as provided by the General Assembly resolution 60/251, a special session of the Human Rights Council entitled “The human rights situation in Darfur” immediately after the third session of the Human Rights Council, preferably on 12 December 2006.”

The request for the special session was signed by the following 33 Member States: Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Japan, Morocco, Mauritius, Mexico, Nigeria, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, South Africa, Switzerland, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uruguay, United Kingdom and Zambia.

General Assembly resolution 60/251 which created the Human Rights Council states in its operative paragraph 10 that the Council “shall be able to hold special sessions when needed at the request of a member of the Council with the support of one-third of the membership of the Council”.

The first special session of the Human Rights Council was held in July on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory. The second special session was held in August on the human rights violations by Israel in Lebanon, including the Qana massacre, country-wide targeting of innocent civilians, and destruction of vital civilian infrastructure. The third session was held in November 2006 on Israeli military incursions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the recent one in Northern Gaza and the assault on Beit Hanoun.

In his message to the Human Rights Council at the opening of its third regular session on Wednesday, 29 November, United Nations Secretary-General said the Council had focused especially on the Arab-Israeli conflict, which indeed had escalated during these months in ways that caused deep concern to all. He hoped, however, that the Council took care to handle this issue in an impartial way, and did not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of others where there were equally grave or even graver violations. There were surely other situations, besides the one in the Middle East, which merited scrutiny by a special session of this Council. The Secretary-General suggested that Darfur was a glaring case in point.

The fourth special session will start at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 12 December in the Assembly Hall at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The Council will conclude its third regular session on 8 December.

For use of the information media; not an official record

HRC06080E