Today is the first day of the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council and some of our colleagues of WILPF’s International Secretariat here in Geneva have already left their office desks to find their places in the opening meeting.
Every day, for a month, we will attend the main events and parallel meetings organised by other NGOs with a notepad at hand and an inquisitive, questioning mind on the search for interesting news and updates to share with you. But let’s start from the beginning…
What is the HRC?
The Human Rights Council (HRC) is the main United Nations intergovernamental forum dealing with human rights around the globe. Its main aims are on the one hand to promote and protect human rights and on the other to address human rights violations and making recommendations on them.
The Human Rights Council was created in 2006 and is made up of 47 states. It uses the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a mechanism we have been actively defending through our UPR campaign, to assess the human rights situation in all 192 UN Member States.
The HRC session that has just began will be dealing with a number of issues: from torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and counter-terrorism, to corruption and right to food and adequate housing.
Follow the Human Rights Council from your sofa!
We will keep an almost daily blog on our website on the most interesting subjects discussed during the HRC and its parallel events. We will also keep you updated on facebook and twitter on the meetings and events we are attending.
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