As delivered by Ambassador Hans Brattskar.
Mr President,
I have the honour to introduce resolution L.19 - The contribution of the Human Rights Council to the prevention of human rights violations, on behalf of the core group consisting of Colombia, Sierra Leone, Switzerland and Norway.
We bring this resolution forward to the Council cognizant that prevention of human rights violations is an integral and substantial part of the council’s mandate. GA resolution 60/251, including para 5f, outlines the Council’s mandate on prevention.
The Human Rights Council is not a static body, it is one that should be vigilant and proactive in prevention human rights violations. Through this resolution, which has been built upon two joint statements from respectively HRC 36 and HRC 37, cross-regionally supported by some 70 states, we seek to begin a dialogue and consultation process on how to the Council can effectively s contribute to the prevention of human rights violations.
The resolution, L.19, calls for two intersessional seminars to be organized in Geneva and for the HRC President to appoint a Chair-rapporteur and two rapporteurs to facilitate and chair these seminars. The resolution also calls for the rapporteurs to consult widely with relevant stakeholders including in New York to reach out to those members who are not represented here in Geneva.
The Human Rights Council should not work in a silo on prevention of human rights violations, it should “contribute” to prevention also together with other UN bodies and organs. Thus, we have tasked the rapporteurs to look at how the HRC “…can work effectively with all pillars of the United Nations system on the prevention of human rights violations, with a view to strengthening system-wide coherence and contributing to sustaining peace and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals”.
Through this dialogue and consultation process we hope that good ideas and proposals on how to further the Council’s work on prevention will arise. Then, when the report is submitted to the 43th session of the Council, the Council must decide if and how it can and will take these proposals forward.
We have had three open informals during this session in a constructive and transparent manner. We have appreciated the good and substantial comments received. Based upon them we have revised the text significantly to try to accommodate concerns raised by some delegations, and to streamline the main message to avoid any prejudgment of the outcome. In the sprit of continued constructive dialogue and compromise, we have decided to accommodate, as an oral revision, a one last change that was reflected in the amendment L.40 to further demonstrate our determination to arrive at balanced and consensual resolution.
The amendment L.40 will be included as a PP6 Bis and reads as follows:
“Reaffirming the existing procedures and mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, particularly the universal periodic review, the special procedures, the complaints procedure, the Advisory Committee and the open-ended intergovernmental working groups, whose mandates are relevant to the promotion and protection of human rights and the prevention of human rights violations,”
With your permission, I would like to pass the floor to the ambassador of Switzerland to finalize our introduction of L.40.