Background to the Geneva Meeting China Chechnya East Timor Uzbekistan Sierra Leone Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Sudan Colombia Haiti Documents

The Annual Session of the Commission on Human Rights Geneva, March 20 - April 28, 2000 The United Nations Commission on Human Rights is the world's highest political body dealing solely with human rights. It consists of 53 member states elected for three-year terms, and it meets each year in Geneva for its a six-week regular session. After decades of focusing largely on drafting standards, the Commission began in the 1980s to develop mechanisms to look into human rights violations affecting individuals, to contact governments on an emergency basis, and to report its findings and recommendations promptly and publicly. In the early 1990s, the topics covered, experts appointed, and actions taken grew dramatically. The Commission also convened the first emergency sessions in its history (on former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and most recently, on East Timor in September 1999). The Commission's Special Procedures (i.e., the working groups, special rapporteurs, independent experts, and special representatives) displayed relative independence, speed and strength. For example, the thematic mechanisms facilitated on-site investigations of countries that, because of their political power, had never before been under U.N. scrutiny (including all five permanent members of the Security Council). Embarrassing reports issued by these U.N. mechanisms raised considerably the price of human rights abuses. These special procedures also developed ways to respond quickly to individual cases of abuse through "urgent appeals" which have been issued directly to governments on behalf of individual victims and have often yielded significant improvements. Two of the working groups, on arbitrary detention and disappearances, also developed their own procedures for addressing the cases of individual victims, demonstrating a professionalism that matched the urgency of their purpose. In recent years, the Commission has also mandated the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish a field presence in numerous locations, affording an opportunity for on-going, on-the-ground monitoring of human rights developments. During each annual session of the Commission, in a public debate with the participation of governments, U.N. agencies and NGOs, the Commission's special rapporteurs and working groups as well as the High Commissioner report their findings and release public reports. Not all efforts at condemning human rights violations have been successful at the Commission, however. In particular, powerful governments have been able to block public condemnation of their human rights record. For example, an initiative to censure human rights abuses in China, first undertaken in 1990, in the aftermath of the Tiannamen Square massacre, has so far always failed. Human Rights Watch has participated in the annual sessions of the CHR since 1994. Each year it has identified several lead priorities and worked toward achieving its goals by making written and oral statements to the Commission, and through direct advocacy with member states.