U.N.:New Rights Council Offers Hope for Victims

The creation of a new HUman Rights Council by the UN General Assembly is a major step forward for protection of victims worldwide, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today.

"We call on all countries to pledge not to vote for governments that systematically repress their people," said Roth. "States like Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, or Zimbabwe, which are current members of the old commission, cannot be allowed on to the new council."

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Other key elements of the proposal include:
The council will meet at least three times a year for ten weeks – an improvement on the commission's single annual six-week meeting – with a right for one-third of the council members to call additional sessions "when needed."
The old commission's system of independent "special rapporteurs" and other special procedures, which is one of the great strengths of the U.N. human rights system, will be retained, as will the tradition of access for human rights NGOs.
Members of the council are committed to cooperate with the council and its various mechanisms – an improvement on current practice, in which some members of the commission refuse to grant unimpeded access to U.N. human rights investigators.
The right of the council to address serious human rights situations through country-specific resolutions is reaffirmed.
A new universal review procedure will scrutinize the records of even the most powerful countries – an important step toward redressing the double standards that the commission was