HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION TO HOLD FIFTY-SECOND SESSION AT GENEVA, 18 MARCH - 26 APRIL
Press Release
HR/CN/702
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION TO HOLD FIFTY-SECOND SESSION AT GENEVA, 18 MARCH - 26 APRIL
19960314 Background Release GENEVA, 13 March (UN Information Service) -- The state of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the world will be the focus as the Commission on Human Rights, the main United Nations human rights body, holds its fifty- second session at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, from 18 March to 26 April.The Commission's extensive mandate allows it to examine the whole spectrum of human rights, be they civil, political, economic, social or cultural. The provisional agenda for this session deals with questions such as human rights violations in the occupied Arab territories, including Palestine, and on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville. There are also items on the human rights situations in Cuba, southern Lebanon and western Bekaa, Iran, Zaire, Equatorial Guinea, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, the territory of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and East Timor.
Human rights in Cyprus are also on the agenda, as are measures to ensure the rights of women migrant workers, detainees, and minorities. The right of peoples to self-determination and the question of advisory services to governments in human rights matters are also to be discussed.
The Commission will look at the realization in all countries of economic, social and cultural rights, of the right to development and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms. It will also focus on such phenomena as: torture and other cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment; enforced disappearances; arbitrary detention; freedom of opinion and expression; racial discrimination and xenophobia; summary or arbitrary executions; mercenaries; religious intolerance; human rights and mass exoduses; hostage-taking; and the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.
The adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic waste and dangerous products and wastes on the enjoyment of human rights will also be discussed.
The Commission will consider the report of its Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities on its forty-seventh session, held last August at Geneva. That report contains 12 draft resolutions and draft decisions to be acted on by the Commission.
Another important aspect of the Commission's work is in the area of standard-setting, which will continue at this session with a draft text on the right and responsibility of individuals, groups and organs of society to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms. Standard-setting will also be at the centre of attention when children's rights are discussed. The Commission will examine a progress report concerning the study on protection of children affected by armed conflicts, and the report of the second session of a working group established to elaborate a draft optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on children in armed conflicts. There is also the report of the working group to elaborate an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
The International Decade of the World's Indigenous People will be discussed when the Commission takes up the report of a workshop organized by the Centre for Human Rights on the possible establishment of a permanent forum for indigenous people in the United Nations, held in Copenhagen last June. That report, as well as the report of the Working Group on indigenous populations on a draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, will be before the Commission.
Violence against women, its causes and consequences, and in particular violence against women in the family, will be the subject of the report of the Special Rapporteur appointed by the Commission in 1994. At that time, the Commission called for an intensified effort at an international level to integrate the equal status of women and their human rights into the mainstream of United Nations activity and to address those issues regularly and systematically throughout relevant United Nations bodies. Another report focuses on the meeting of an expert group on the development of guidelines for the integration of a gender perspective into United Nations human rights activities and programmes.
The Commission will also consider the follow-up to the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights when it takes up the annual report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. That report contains a section on the measures taken and the progress achieved in the comprehensive implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. Those instruments would inspire and determine all the future action of the international community and of the United Nations system on behalf of human rights.
The Commission was established in 1946 by the Economic and Social Council. In addition to preparing studies, making recommendations and drafting international human rights instruments, it also undertakes special tasks assigned to it by the General Assembly or the Council, including the investigation of alleged human rights violations. In addition, it provides for the coordination of human rights activities in the United Nations system. The Commission has been authorized, since 1990, to meet exceptionally between
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regular sessions to consider particularly grave human rights situations, provided that a majority of its 53 members so agree.
Human Rights Violations
The Commission on Human Rights has been seized of the human rights situation in the territories occupied by Israel as a result of the hostilities of June 1967 since its twenty-fourth session (1968). At its forty-ninth session, the Commission decided to appoint a Special Rapporteur to investigate Israel's violations of the principles and bases of international law and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, and to report, with his conclusions and recommendations, to the Commission at its future sessions until the end of the Israeli occupation of those territories. Following the resignation of René Felber (Switzerland) at last year's session, Hannu Halinen (Finland) was appointed Special Rapporteur.
Among the documents before the Commission under this item will be the second report of the Special Rapporteur, and a note by the Secretary-General listing United Nations reports issued between sessions of the Commission that deal with the living conditions of the population of the Palestinian and other occupied Arab territories under the Israeli occupation. Also before the Commission will be a report by the Secretary-General on human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan.
While looking at the question of rights violations in any part of the world, with particular reference to colonial and other dependent countries and territories, the Commission will also have before it reports of the Secretary- General on, among other questions, human rights on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville, southern Lebanon and western Bekaa, East Timor, and Chechnya.
During its 1995 session, the Commission extended the mandate of its Special Rapporteur appointed in 1993 to make a thorough study of the violation of human rights by the Government of Equatorial Guinea. It extended the mandate of its Special Rapporteur on the Sudan and recommended that he begin consultations with the Secretary-General on modalities leading to the placement of monitors in such locations as would help the independent verification of reports on the situation of human rights in the Sudan. The Commission extended the mandates of its Special Rapporteurs to report on the human rights situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar and Zaire. It also extended the mandate of its Special Rapporteur to maintain direct contacts with the Government and citizens of Cuba, as well as that of the Special Representative on the human rights situation in Iran, including that of minority groups such as the Baha'is.
Concerning the situation of human rights in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, the Chairman of the Commission appointed Elisabeth Rehn (Finland)
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as Special Rapporteur following the resignation of Tadeusz Mazowiecki (Poland) in July 1995. The Commission will have before it periodic reports submitted in April, July and August 1995, a report to the General Assembly (document A/50/727-S/1995/89), as well as an additional report.
As to Guatemala, the Commission in 1995 requested the Secretary-General to extend the mandate of the independent expert so that she might continue to examine the situation of human rights there, provide assistance to the Government in human rights, and submit to the Commission at this session a report evaluating the measures taken by the Government in accordance with the recommendations made to it. That report, as well the second report of the Director of the United Nations Mission for the Verification of Human Rights and Compliance with the Commitments of the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights in Guatemala (MINUGUA) (document A/49/929) will be before the Commission.
The Commission decided to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burundi. The report of the Special Rapporteur, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro (Brazil), will be before the Commission. The Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions will also be before the Commission.
At its third special session held in May 1994, the Commission decided to appoint a Special Rapporteur, for an initial period of one year, to investigate at first-hand the human rights situation in Rwanda and receive relevant, credible information on that situation, including on root causes and responsibilities for the recent atrocities. Before the Commission will be two reports submitted by the Special Rapporteur, René Dégni-Seguí (Côte d'Ivoire), since the renewal of his mandate. The Commission will have before it the report of a coordination meeting on the situation of human rights in the Great Lakes region.
In addition, situations which appear to reveal a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights will be examined under Economic and Social Council resolution 1503 adopted in 1970. Since then, particular situations relating to some 65 countries have been placed before the Commission under the procedure. This work will be carried out in closed meetings on the basis of a confidential report from the Commission's Working Group on situations, as well as other confidential documents.
Also on the agenda is the question of the human rights of all persons subjected to any form of detention or imprisonment. Among the issues to be examined are the following: torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; enforced or involuntary disappearances; children and juveniles in detention; human rights and states of emergency; the independence of the judiciary; the right to a fair trial; and arbitrary detention. Documentation includes the reports of the Special Rapporteur on Torture, and
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of the Working Groups on enforced or involuntary disappearances and on arbitrary detention.
In 1993, a Special Rapporteur was appointed, for a period of three years, to seek credible information on cases of discrimination against, threats or use of violence and harassment directed at persons, in particular, professionals in the field of information, seeking to exercise or promote the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The report of the Special Rapporteur, Abid Hussain (India), will be before the Commission.
Also for consideration at this session will be the report of the Secretary-General on the situation of United Nations staff members, experts and their families detained, imprisoned, missing or held in a country against their will, including those cases which had been successfully settled since the presentation of the last report, as well as on his efforts to ensure that the human rights, privileges and immunities of United Nations staff members, experts and their families were fully respected.
Other documents under this agenda item before the Commission include the updated report of the Special Rapporteur on human rights and states of emergency to the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, the reports of the Secretary-General on the provision of technical assistance and advisory services in the administration of justice, and on assistance to States in strengthening the rule of law.
Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The question of the realization in all countries of the economic, social and cultural rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has been a standing item with high priority on the Commission's agenda since 1975. Under it, the Commission studies the special problems faced by developing countries in their efforts to achieve those human rights. Those include, for example, problems related to the right to enjoy an adequate standard of living, foreign debt, economic adjustment policies and their effects on the full enjoyment of human rights.
Among the issues to be considered by the Commission under this item are the links between human rights and the environment and human rights and extreme poverty. Also, the Commission authorized in 1995 an open-ended working group to meet for one week prior to the fifty-third session to elaborate policy guidelines on structural adjustment programmes and economic, social and cultural rights on the basis of the preliminary set of basic guidelines contained in the report of the Secretary-General and in close cooperation with the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
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Furthermore, the Commission will act on a number of resolutions submitted to it by the subcommission on such issues as forced evictions, and or effects on the full environment of human rights of structural adjustment programmes.
As to the effects of the existing unjust international economic order on the economies of the developing countries, and the obstacle that it represents for the implementation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the Commission requested the Secretary-General to submit a report to the Commission at the forthcoming session recommending ways and means to carry out a political dialogue between creditor and debtor countries in the United Nations system, based on the principles of shared responsibility. That report will be before the Commission.
Concerning realization of the right to development, the Commission in 1993 decided to establish a working group composed of 15 experts with a mandate to identify obstacles to the implementation of the Declaration on the Right to Development and to recommend ways and means towards the realization of that right by all States. The reports of that working group, which held two sessions in 1995, will be among the documents before the Commission.
The Commission in 1995 decided to appoint, for a period of three years, a Special Rapporteur on the question of the adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic waste and dangerous products and wastes on the enjoyment of human rights. The Special Rapporteur, Fatma Zohra Ksentini (Algeria), was requested to include in his report a list of the countries and transnational corporations engaged in the illicit dumping of such products and wastes in African and other developing countries. The report will be before the Commission.
Right to Self-Determination
Last year, the Commission adopted three resolutions within the framework of its concern for the right of peoples to self-determination and its application to peoples under colonial or alien domination or foreign occupation. Those focused on the situation in occupied Palestine, the question of Western Sahara, and on the use of mercenaries as a means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination. Among other things, it decided to consider the situation in occupied Palestine as a matter of high priority at the 1996 session. It decided to follow the development of the situation in Western Sahara and to consider the question at the forthcoming session as a matter of high priority. It extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the use of mercenaries for three years and requested him to report to the Commission on his activities.
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Elimination of Discrimination
Again this year, the Commission will deal with the issues of racial and religious discrimination. In 1993, it appointed, for a three-year period, a Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia and related intolerance, and requested him to report to the Commission on an annual basis. Last year, it requested Maurice Glèlè-Ahanhanzo to continue to examine any forms of discrimination against blacks, Arabs and Muslims, xenophobia, negrophobia, anti-Semitism, and related intolerance, as well as governmental efforts to overcome them. His report will be among the documents before the Commission, along with the report of the Secretary-General on the activities for the Third Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination.
Also before the Commission will be the report of the Special Rapporteur appointed to examine incidents and governmental actions in all parts of the world that were incompatible with the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief, Abdelfattah Amor (Tunisia).
Human Rights Promotion and Protection
In evaluating its programme and methods of work, the Commission also looks at alternative approaches and ways and means within the United Nations system for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. National institutions for human rights protection come up for study, as does the coordinating role of the Centre for Human Rights within the United Nations bodies and machinery in the field. Those bodies include the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Human Rights Committee, which monitor, respectively, implementation of the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights. How they, as well as the other bodies established pursuant to United Nations human rights instruments, carry out their mandates will also be examined.
At its 1994 session, the Commission decided to appoint for a period of three years a Special Rapporteur on violence against women, including its causes and consequences, and requested the expert to report to the Commission annually. It also requested the Secretary-General to ensure that those reports were brought to the attention of the Commission on the Status of Women and called for intensified effort at an international level to integrate the equal status of women and the human rights of women into the mainstream of United Nations system-wide activity and to address those issues regularly and systematically throughout relevant United Nations bodies and systems. The report of the Special Rapporteur, Radhika Coomaraswamy (Sri Lanka), will be before the Commission.
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Another document will be the report of an expert group meeting on the development of guidelines for the integration of a gender perspective into United Nations human rights activities and programmes, which was organized by the Centre for Human Rights and the United Nations Development Fund and held at Geneva from 3 to 7 July 1995, pursuant to the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.
The General Assembly, in 1994, requested the Secretary-General to study the ways and mechanisms in which the United Nations system could support the efforts of governments to promote and consolidate new or restored democracies, and to submit a comprehensive report thereon to the Assembly at its fiftieth session. That Commission, in 1995, requested him to circulate to the Commission any materials prepared in response to that resolution. It recommended that the subcommission discuss at its next session ways and means of overcoming obstacles to the consolidation of democratic societies, taking into account the relation between democracy, development and human rights. It also decided to examine the issue at the forthcoming session. The report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly will be before the Commission (documents A/50/332 and Corr.1).
Other questions to be addressed under the item include human rights and terrorism, international and domestic measures taken to protect human rights and to prevent discrimination in the context of HIV/AIDS, human rights and unilateral coercive measures, education and human rights, and regional arrangements for the promotion and protection of human rights.
Also before the Commission will be a report by the Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons, Francis Deng (Sudan), which is aimed at a better understanding of the general problems faced by internally displaced persons and the possible long-term solution of those problems. Concerning human rights and mass exoduses, the Commission requested the Secretary-General to prepare and submit to this session an updated report on the question.
In 1995, the Commission requested the Centre for Human Rights, with the assistance of national institutions and the Centre's Coordinating Committee, to provide technical assistance for States wishing to establish or strengthen their national institutions and to organize training programmes for national institutions which requested them. It invited governments to contribute additional funds to the Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights for those purposes. Furthermore, it requested the Secretary- General to invite Member States which had not yet done so to inform him of their views concerning possible forms of participation by national institutions in relevant United Nations meetings dealing with human rights. That report will be before the Commission, along with the report of the third international workshop on national institutions, held in Manila from 8 to 21 April 1995.
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Regarding the coordinating role of the Centre for Human Rights within the United Nations bodies and machinery dealing with the promotion and protection of human rights, the Commission supported the efforts of the Secretary-General to enhance the role and further improve the functioning of the Centre, under the overall supervision of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and decided to consider the question at the fifty-second session. It also decided to examine the question of the composition of the staff of the Centre for Human Rights.
The Commission will consider the report of the Secretary-General on progress made in the implementation of the programme of advisory services and technical cooperation in the field of human rights. It describes the action of the Centre for Human Rights in connection with programmes aimed at strengthening national infrastructures for the promotion and protection of human rights, revising legislation and constitutions to conform to human rights standards, and providing training to government and law enforcement officials. In that regard, the Commission will consider reports relating to the assistance to Somalia, Haiti, Togo and Cambodia.
Protection of Rights of Specific Groups
In 1995, the Commission decided to establish an open-ended inter- sessional working group with the sole purpose of elaborating a draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The report of that group, which met from 20 November to 1 December 1995, will be examined by the Commission. Other documents in that field include: the report of the second technical meeting on the planning of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, which began on 10 December 1994; the report of the workshop on the possible establishment of a permanent forum for indigenous people, held in Copenhagen from 26 to 28 June 1995; and the report of the Working Group on indigenous populations.
Measures to improve the situation and ensure the human rights and dignity of all migrant workers will be considered during the forthcoming session. The Commission, in 1995, requested the Secretary-General to report on the status of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. The report will be before the Commission, which will also continue to examine the question of violence against women migrant workers.
In 1994, the General Assembly called upon the Commission to examine, as a matter of priority, ways and means to promote and protect effectively the rights of persons belonging to minorities as set out in the Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. Last year, the Commission authorized the Subcommission to establish, initially for a three-year period, an inter-sessional working group consisting of five of its members to meet each year for five working days.
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They were requested, in particular, to: review the promotion and practical realization of the Declaration; examine possible solutions to problems involving minorities, including the promotion of mutual understanding between and among minorities and governments; and recommend further measures, as appropriate, for the promotion and protection of the rights of minorities. The report of the first session of the working group, held from 28 August to 1 September 1995, will be before the Commission.
Standard-Setting
The Commission is continuing its standard-setting activities with work on a draft declaration on the right and responsibility of individuals, groups and organs of society to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. Last year, the Commission urged the open-ended working group on the question to make every effort to complete its task and submit the draft declaration to the Commission at this session. The report of the working group will be before the Commission.
In addition, the Commission will consider the question of a draft optional protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment designed to establish a preventive system of visits by a committee of experts to places of detention within the jurisdiction of States parties to the protocol. Before the Commission will be the report of the open-ended inter-sessional working group set up to elaborate the draft optional protocol.
Rights of Child
The question of the rights of the child has gained increasing importance during recent years, especially since the entry into force in 1990 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
At its forty-eighth session, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to appoint an expert to undertake a study on the protection of children affected by armed conflicts, including their participation in such conflicts and the relevance and adequacy of existing standards. The expert was also asked to make recommendations on ways and means of prevention, effective protection and remedial action, including measures to ensure proper medical care and adequate nutrition, taking into account the recommendations of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The progress report of the Secretary-General on this study will be before the Commission.
The Commission, in 1994, decided to establish an open-ended inter-sessional working group to elaborate, as a matter of priority, a draft optional protocol to the Convention, on the rights of children in armed conflicts using, as one basis for its discussions, the preliminary draft
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optional protocol submitted to it by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. In 1995, the Commission welcomed the progress made and requested the group to meet for a period of two weeks prior to the fifty-second session of the Commission in order to pursue its mandate.
Also in 1995, the Commission decided that the open-ended working group responsible for elaborating guidelines for a possible draft optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, as well as the basic measures needed for their prevention and eradication, should elaborate, as a matter of priority and in close cooperation with the Special Rapporteur, such a draft optional protocol. At the present session, the Commission will have before it the reports of the working groups on their second sessions.
Under that agenda item, the Commission will also consider the status of the Convention and the report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, including child prostitution and child pornography, Ofelia Calcetas-Santos (Philippines).
Composition of Commission
The composition of the Commission for 1996 is as follows: Algeria, Angola, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Gabon, Germany, Guinea, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
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