Human rights

With its legislative, institutional and procedural mechanisms for protecting human rights meeting the highest European standards, Slovakia had made significant progress in implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Human Rights Committee heard today.

Commending the Government of Togo for having abolished the death penalty and adopted a press code, experts of the Human Rights Committee expressed concern today at the number of draft laws awaiting passage in the National Assembly, especially a draft Criminal Code, and urged their adoption as soon as possible to prevent the perception that a lack of political will was interfering with much needed reform.

Togo was on an irreversible path to sustainable human development and democracy, which would enhance the protection of human rights and consolidate the rule of law in the wake of the period of national unrest that had followed the death of its President in 2005, the country’s Minister for Human Rights, Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law told the Human Rights Committee today as it began its 101st session.

The Thirteenth Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child today elected nine members to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

More than 300 students from the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, France and Mexico concluded their annual Student Conference on Human Rights, held at United Nations Headquarters from 1 to 3 December, under the theme "Discrimination and the Rights of the Child".

The needs and rights of disabled persons must be more fully integrated into the United Nations system’s diverse international agenda, from its efforts to coordinate humanitarian assistance, provide development funds and fight disease, to its ability to empower women and collect data on human development, the Third Conference of States Parties of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was told today, as it concluded its three-day session.

The Meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights this morning re-elected six members and elected three new members to its monitoring body, the Human Rights Committee.

Equal access to education — with accommodating teachers, understanding students and a supportive administration — coupled with respect for the right of disabled persons to choose where and with whom they lived were vital elements for realizing the full spectrum of human rights, the third Conference of States Parties of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was told today, in two round table discussions concerning those issues.

The third Conference of States Parties of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities opened today amid calls to equally include disabled persons in community life, health and education systems, and to effectively fill planning and execution gaps in Government strategies that often fell short of addressing their needs, especially in times of conflict or natural disaster.

Stressing that prevailing development paradigms had often destroyed the political, economic and spiritual systems of indigenous peoples, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues closed its ninth session today adopting its draft report, which, among other things, urged the United Nations to support indigenous peoples’ efforts to formulate their own development models based on concepts “underpinned by indigenous cosmologies, philosophies, values, cultures and identities”.