After a three-month suspension, the Human Rights Council resumed its forty-third session at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday June 15. This week will see the introduction of a special segment on the issue of racism, following the recent death of an African-American victim of police violence in the USA.
The final part of the Council's session, from June 15 to 19, will adopt a novel hybrid format combining physical distance, the wearing of masks and the reduced presence of participants in the UN Assembly Hall in Geneva. Exchanges can also be followed simultaneously online.
Urgent requests
Last week, the President of the Human Rights Council, Austrian UN Ambassador Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, received two urgent requests. On the one hand, a letter signed by over 600 NGOs calling for a special session on the situation in the United States following the death of African-American George Floyd. The other was a letter from Burkina Faso's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Dieudonné Désiré Sougouri, the African group's coordinator for human rights issues. The 54 countries are calling for an urgent debate on "current human rights violations motivated by racial
considerations, systemic racism, police violence and violence against peaceful demonstrators."
Reminder of commitments
According to the ambassadors' letter, "the main objective of the dialogue is to tackle the structural and immediate causes of racial discrimination which prevails throughout the world, with an enormous impact on the enjoyment of human rights, particularly by people of African descent." The African representatives believe that the urgent debate will also be "an opportunity to remind States of their commitments to combat these human rights violations, when they adopted the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action almost 20 years ago."
To organize a special session, a third of the 47 States must support the organization of such a discussion. The issue of police violence and racial discrimination will in any case be addressed on Tuesday June 16 and Wednesday June 17 during a regular discussion on racism, which was already scheduled.