Amnesty International's Guide to UN Human Rights Council Candidates

Click here to launch the profiles microsite.

The election of the first members of the new UN Human Rights Council will take place on 9 May 2005. Each of the 47 members must achieve an absolute majority of the votes at the UN General Assembly in order secure a seat on the Council.

Amnesty International welcomes the election of Council members by the General Assembly as indication of broad support of the international community, which will give the new Council more legitimacy.

In order to encourage greater openness and transparency around the elections to the Council, Amnesty International urged all candidate countries to announce their intention to stand 30 days in advance of the elections, i.e. by 10 April. On that day, 44 countries had put themselves forward and 17 had also made a public election pledge. When casting their votes, Member States must take into account candidates countries’ contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights and their voluntary pledges and commitments thereto (this is stipulated in the resolution which established the Council).

Amnesty International encourages all candidate countries to formulate such human rights pledges and commitments in concrete and measurable terms and to ensure that these are accessible on relevant UN and national websites to ensure transparency of the election process.

In order to assist Member States in assessing the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights, Amnesty International is making available brief summaries of its recent research findings into the human rights situation in candidate countries (please note that this summary reflects AI’s current research strategies, which, in some countries, focus on a specific set of issues in the country concerned). These summaries do not intend to give a comprehensive overview of the human rights situation in a particular country. Nevertheless, Amnesty International believes they may be of assistance to Member States in their deliberations.

Amnesty International also takes this opportunity to draw attention to key elements of the candidate country’s cooperation with the treaty monitoring bodies and the Special Procedures, including the country’s record of ratification of key human rights treaties, the timely submission of reports to the treaty monitoring bodies, the extension of a standing invitation to the Special Procedures, facilitation of visits requested by them, and responsiveness to their urgent and routine communications.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________