Human Rights Council to Hold Special Session on Sudan on 11 May

The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session to address “the human rights impact of the ongoing conflict in the Sudan” on Thursday, 11 May.

The session will start at 10 a.m. in room XX at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.  The meeting will be webcast live on webtv.un.org in the six official languages of the United Nations.

The special session is being convened per an official request submitted Friday evening (5 May), jointly by the United Kingdom, Norway, the United States, and Germany, which has been supported by 52 States thus far.

For a special session to be convened, the support of one-third of the 47 members of the Council – 16 or more – is required.  This request is thus far supported by the following States members of the Council (19): Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Czechia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Montenegro, Paraguay, Romania, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States.

The request was also supported by the following 33 observer States: Albania, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Uruguay.

The list of signatories remains open up to the holding of the special session.  Therefore, the above list of States is to be considered provisional.

In connection with this special session, the Council will convene an organizational meeting on Wednesday, 10 May at 3 p.m. when specific details on the special session and its scenario will be announced.  This meeting will be webcast.

This will be the thirty-sixth special session of the Council.  The full list of special sessions of the Human Rights Council can be seen here.

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HRC23.060E