Strasbourg, 16/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday the European Parliament adopted the report by the EPP-ED, PES, ALDE, Greens/EFA and UEN groups. Welcoming the decision of the United Nations to create a Human Rights Council to replace the Human Rights Commission, it called on all UN members to ensure that the Council will be able to protect and promote human rights and on the EU to play a leading role in this new body.
On Wednesday, the General Assembly of the UN approved by an overwhelming majority the creation of the Human Rights Council, despite strong opposition from the United States, unhappy with the structure of the new body. In plenary session in New York, 170 member states voted for the resolution, four against (United States, Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau) and three countries abstained (Belarus, Iran and Venezuela). The project will create a Council of 47 members elected by secret ballot and by absolute majority in the General Assembly (rather than by nomination by each regional group as previously). Washington had insisted on a body restricted to members elected by two thirds majority. The new Council will meet more often (at least three times a year for ten weeks and not for only six weeks in spring, as with the Human Rights Commission in Geneva) and will create a system for regularly reviewing the human rights situation in each country. The General Assembly, on a two thirds majority, will be able to suspend any member guilty of serious misconduct.
In its resolution, the European Parliament calls on UN member states to ensure that countries with the strictest standards on human rights are elected as members of the Human Rights Council and calls on the EU to insist that nominations are submitted thirty days before the election to ensure public scrutiny of those countries' commitment and record in human rights. The election of members of the Human Rights Council will take place on 9 May, and the body will have its first meeting on 19 June.
With regard to the 62nd session of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Parliament stresses that it must be a shortened, transition session given over to procedure, but that the Commission must fulfil its mandate on human rights protection throughout the world and that it should, especially, examine the UN Secretary General's report on cooperation with representatives of UN bodies responsible for human rights and ensure that mandates nearing expiry are renewed, particularly that of the special representative of the Secretary General on human rights defenders.
The EU High Representative for the CFSP, Javier Solana welcomed the decision by the UN General Assembly. “The creation of the Human Rights Council is essential to further strengthen the UN human rights machinery, and represents an important step in the UN reform process,” he said in a press release. The important thing now was to “make it work”, stressed Mr Solana. Speaking of the Presidency of the EU, Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik spoke of a “great success for the European Union”. The new Human Rights Council, even if it is not exactly what the EU had originally hoped for, “has the potential to prevent tragedies like Srebrenica and Rwanda”, she said.