General Assembly

While affirming his country’s “unique but robust constitutional structure”, which afforded opportunities for engagement with human rights protections across all Government institutions and among all citizens, the Minister of Justice of New Zealand, addressing a panel of United Nations rights experts today, nevertheless acknowledged several issues of ongoing concern, including the use of “tasers”, the private management of prisons and the disproportionate number of Maori in the country’s prisons.

The United Nations Disarmament Commission, ahead of its 2010 substantive session slated for 29 March to 16 April, today elected Jean-Francis Régis Zinsou (Benin) as Chair, who urged that members “look at the future with a positive spirit”.

Saluting steps taken by Uzbekistan in recent years to reform its human rights legislation ‑‑ notably its abolition of the death penalty and its guarantee of habeas corpus ‑‑ experts on the Human Rights Committee nevertheless pressed that country to address potential gaps on a number of critical fronts, including the independence of its judiciary, the use of torture by various security forces and reports that child labour persisted despite laws prohibiting it.

From the very beginning of its independence just 18 years ago, Uzbekistan had sought to protect and promote the civil and political rights of all its citizens and had moved swiftly to adopt legislative, administrative and other measures to that end, such as abolishing the death penalty in 2008, the Director of the country’s National Human Rights Centre told the Human Rights Committee today.

Argentina had made steady strides in breaking with its legacy of military dictatorship, but the repression of those dark years continued to reverberate in ways that could forestall reform efforts, experts on the Human Rights Committee said today as they wrapped up consideration of that county’s fourth periodic report on compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Addressing a panel of United Nations rights experts, Luis Duhalde, Secretary of Human Rights of Argentina, highlighted his country’s efforts to protect and promote such rights and provide justice for all its citizens, as he declared the determination of his Government to overcome the lingering effects of repressive laws promulgated during Argentina’s military dictatorship, which ruled from 1976 to 1983.

Taking up a range of topics, the Fifth Committee was told today that it was “imperative” to have a support system in place for United Nations personnel that had survived malicious acts, natural disasters and other emergencies, and to coordinate with families of deceased staff members.

While recognizing measures taken by the Mexican Government to reconcile the country’s national legislation with its obligations under international human rights treaties, experts on the Human Rights Committee today expressed concern that the means of addressing incompatibilities between those treaties and laws below the constitutional level remained unclear.

While Mexico was working to build a participatory democracy that protected fundamental freedoms, the Government faced complex challenges in closing gaps in human rights legislation and reforming the laws, policies, and practices that gave rise to them, a senior official in Mexico’s Interior Ministry told the Human Rights Committee today as it began its ninety-sixth session.

Reports submitted by the Governments of Argentina, Mexico, New Zealand and Uzbekistan on measures taken to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights will be reviewed by the Human Rights Committee at its ninety-eighth session, which will be held in New York at United Nations Headquarters from 8 to 26 March 2010.