Human Rights Council to Hold Special Session on the Human Rights Situation in and around El Fasher, Sudan on 14 November

The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on the human rights situation in and around El Fasher, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Sudan, on Friday, 14 November 2025. 

The special session can start at the earliest at 9 a.m. in the Assembly Hall at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.  The meeting will be webcast live in the six official languages of the United Nations.

The special session is being convened per an official request submitted on Wednesday afternoon, 5 November 2025, by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, jointly with Germany, Ireland, Netherlands (Kingdom of the) and Norway, which has been supported by 24 States members of the Council 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 24 States members of the Council: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czechia, Dominican Republic, France, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands (Kingdom of the), North Macedonia, Republic of Korea, Romania, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland. 

The request is also supported by the following 31 observer States: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 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 open-ended informative consultation before the special session on its conduct and organization.  This consultation will be held in the Assembly Hall of the Palais des Nations, following the conclusion of the organizational meeting that the Council will hold, should the United States of America not be present in the room to participate in its universal periodic review on Friday, 7 November 2025, at 2:30 p.m.  This consultation will also be webcast live.

This will be the thirty-eighth special session of the Human Rights Council.  The Council previously held two special sessions on the Sudan on 5 November 2021 and on 11 May 2023.  The full list of special sessions of the Human Rights Council can be seen here.

For more information and media requests, please contact Pascal Sim, Human Rights Council Media Officer, at simp@un.org, or Matthew Brown, Human Rights Public Information Officer at matthew.brown@un.org.

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Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the media; 
not an official record. English and French versions of our releases are different as they are the product of two separate coverage teams that work independently.

HRC25.016E