TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE GIVEN AT PALAIS DES NATIONS IN GENEVA BY CHAIRMAN OF COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Following is the transcript of the press conference given today by Ambassador Manuel Rodriguez Cuadros of Peru, the Chairman of the sixty-second session of the Commission on Human Rights, which he gave after the Commission decided to suspend its work for a further week until Monday, 27 March at 3 p.m.

Chairman: First of all, I would like to apologise for the delay, but I was involved in certain consultations subsequent to the re-opening of the session. As you know, the General Assembly of the United Nations has approved the resolution on the creation of the Human Rights Council. I think that the Council will prove to be a stronger and more legitimate instrument than the Commission has been in accomplishing the obligations of the United Nations with regards to the promotion and protection of human rights in all countries of the world.

In my opinion, the Council has five characteristics which are very important and of better quality than the instruments available to the Commission to widen the scope of the protection of human rights. Firstly, the Council is an organ that will occupy, within the United Nations hierarchy, a higher rank than the Commission, as it will depend directly on the General Assembly. Secondly, for the first time, there is a specific reference to the obligations associated to the duty to cooperate; and this is a very important element with regards to all issues related to the implementation of the Council’s future resolutions. The duty to cooperate has been included in the General Assembly’s resolution. Thirdly, as opposed to the Commission, the Council has the capacity and necessary instruments to apply a universal tool to examine violations and the situation of human rights in all countries of the world. I think that the application of this mandate can solve the problems of selectivity, politicisation and discrimination which have affected the ratification procedure of the Commission’s country-specific resolutions. Fourthly, the Council will enjoy the use of the Commission’s system of protection, as all the functions, mechanisms, mandates and responsibilities of the Commission will have been transferred to it. However, as some mechanisms need to be improved, the Council’s mandate also includes the revision of all mechanisms, and, where necessary, to rationalise and improve. Finally, the Council is open to the participation of civil society, NGOs, under the same conditions as those of the Commission. I think that the creation of the Council is good news for human rights defenders, and even more so for victims and possible future victims.

The General Assembly resolution foresees an Ecosoc meeting, at which the decision would be taken to ask the Commission to formally close its work. Normally, this meeting should have taken place in New York last week, but it was only called last Friday, and will be held, I think, this week. This is why this morning we had to suspend the work of the Commission until next Monday. The ECOSOC resolution is in effect a formal requirement for the decisions that the Commission must take. On the other hand, the enlarged Bureau is still holding consultations on the Commission’s order of the day, and I think these should come to an end over the next few days, of course, over this week, to take up the session again, after formally approving the ECOSOC resolution.

Question: Is it fair to the victims of human rights violations to adjourn the work of the Commission again?

Chairman: We are in a transition process towards a more efficient and more powerful mechanism to protect victims. The change is not negative; it is positive for the victims of human rights violations. Also, independently from the decision that the Bureau will take with regards to the length of the actual session of the Commission, the Council must meet for ten weeks this year. The Fifth Committee of the General Assembly has already decided to approve all financial issues related to the creation and the functioning of the Council. The General Assembly resolution stipulates that the Council must be formally installed on 19 June 2006; which means that almost three months will separate the Commission from the Council. From June, the Council must hold ten weeks of session annually, in alternate periods of three and four weeks. Thus, this year, there will be ten weeks of meetings to protect human rights, which is four weeks more than the usual length of the Commission. Also, I believe that there is no room left for a potential gap in human rights coverage.

Question: What are your feelings with regards to your role as the last Chairman of a Commission which has become a hostage of the decision-making process within the Council? In your opinion, how long will the Commission last from next Monday, as, according to certain Ambassadors, it will not last more than a couple of days.

Chairman: I cannot say what individual countries will decide. But I have spoken to many NGOs, and there are different positions; some believe that it would be better that all substantive decisions be taken by the Council, whilst others think differently. Similarly, there are different possibilities among countries. We are working towards an essentially procedural Commission; this is the current trend of the deliberations within the enlarged Bureau, and I think that this is in agreement with the ECOSOC resolution. But, for some countries, it is important and necessary to ask the Council, in a clear and specific manner, to approve the project of a Convention on Forced Disappearances. Consultations will be held over the next few days in order to reach a final decision. But the plan is for a procedural Commission, whilst ensuring that there will be no gap in the protection process during the transfer of its mandate to the Council.

Question: How do you feel? Are you frustrated to be the last Chairman of a Commission that is not ending as everybody thought that it would?

Chairman: My feeling, as last Chairman of the Commission, is a feeling of confidence in the United Nations system for the protection of human rights; as the Commission will finish with a very important event, namely the creation of the Council. It is a stronger Council, with improved mechanisms and instruments for protection with regards to those of the Commission.

I have no feeling of frustration; I have a feeling linking the challenge caused by the new situation, and confidence in the system. We are closing the door on a Commission which contributed significantly towards the universality of human rights, independently to the crisis that it went through in the context of the ratification process of country-specific resolutions. The Commission has given humanity to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights; the two international conventions on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights; the convention on the rights of migrant workers; and a number of judicial and political instruments such as the declaration on the protection of human rights defenders. The Commission has been the institution of the United Nations system that has had the greatest effectiveness in the democraticisation process in Latin America. The creation of certain highly important and particularly efficient mechanisms such as the Working Group on Forced Disappearances was inspired by the experience acquired when the Commission acted in Latin America and other regions. This was a historic step forward. I do not deny the problems met recently by the Commission in the context of the ratification of country-specific resolutions; these problems affected the legitimacy of the Commission, but they are only a part of the history of the Commission and of its capacity as a whole. This door will therefore be closed. If you retrospectively analyse the functioning of the entire United Nations system, from 1947 to today, the Commission has been the most efficient body, independently from its problems. Look at the Economic and Social Council, or other institutional bodies of the United Nations. But this door will be closed, and we will open another - that of a Council, with more instruments for protection, stronger and more legitimate. What will the Council be? We will find out, it will have to take up the gauntlet on its own merits.

Question: Thank you for having spoken well of the Commission, it was missing from the discussion. I would like to come back to what you said about civil society. You said that it would participate in the same way and under the same conditions as in the Commission. Could you be more precise? For example, will the selection of NGOs always depend on ECOSOC? With regards to their effective participation, with regards for example to their right to speak, will the Council’s procedure be the same as the Commission’s?

Chairman: The United Nations resolution (creating the Council) includes dispositions on the participation of civil society and NGOs. First of all, it stipulates that they will participate according to the same ECOSOC rules as those that were applied to the Commission. This means that the status quo will be maintained as the minimum. But further, the resolution also says that this participation will be regulated as per the experience accumulated by the Commission; which means that the practices of the Commission, for example as regards to the right to speak, will of course be respected as a minimum norm for participation. Thus, the minimum norms for participation will be the ECOSOC rules, and the practice of the Commission in all specific cases relating to the participation of the NGOs.

Question: You have said that you are waiting for the ECOSOC decision to take up the work of the Commission again. The decision to suspend the work of the Commission was taken by the Commission itself. There is a logic therein which is difficult to grasp, and which has caused some to say that this is a way of masking an inability to agree on the order of the day here in Geneva, as to the manner in which you are going to bury the Commission; between those who want a balance sheet drawn up, and those who just want a plain and simple funeral.

Chairman: I am going to be very precise. I respect your opinion, it is the freedom of expression. Paragraph 13 of the resolution adopted by the General Assembly asks the Economic and Social Council to ask the Commission to conclude its work during its sixty-second session, and to declare the abolition of the Commission on 16 June 2006. This is to say that it is a formal request, a judicial imperative; the Commission cannot close its work without the legal and formal agreement of ECOSOC. This was agreed upon by all countries in the context of the General Assembly’s resolution. Why ECOSOC has not met yet is an issue for New York. We clearly know what our responsibility is here; the creation of a Council pushes the Commission towards a mainly procedural agenda. We will finish our consultations; we will approve the order of the day; we will receive the formal decision from ECOSOC, we can neither debate nor agree on the closing of the Commission. The ECOSOC resolution is a formal requirement.

Question: Can you be perfectly clear as to whether next Monday you will be meeting to close forever? I have spoken to many NGOs who do not agree with you, and say they are disappointed that the voices of victims will not be heard, and think that the Commission can still do some good, for example by adopting the Convention on Forced Disappearances. Ms. Louise Arbour has said that she hopes the Commission will take this opportunity to burnish its legacy. Isn’t it somewhat shameful to meet week after week in order to close the Commission, which has in some ways done good?

Chairman: Your statement that NGOs do not agree with a mainly procedural Commission is not exact, it does not correspond to reality. There is a mandate to close the Commission. This imposes a transition agenda. Some countries, including Peru, have asked for the Commission to envisage approving the Convention on Forced Disappearances and the Declaration on Indigenous Peoples. But there is another reality, that of the transition. And I think that we need to remember what is important; and what is important is that this Convention and Declaration be adopted this year, whether it be by the Commission or the Council. My opinion, as Chairman of the Commission, is that these two instruments should be discussed and adopted this year. Whether this takes place in the Council is up to the Member States.