International Human Rights and the International Human Rights System A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions Chapter 5: Human Rights Council KEY QUESTIONS • What is the Human Rights Council? • What does it do? • How does it do it? • What roles, if any, can NHRIs play in the Human Rights Council? 1. INTRODUCTION The Human Rights Council (HRC)58 was established in 2006 as the successor to the Commission on Human Rights. The Commission on Human Rights had worked for 60 years to develop international human rights law and the international human rights system but, in the end, it was condemned as lacking “universality, objectivity and non-selectivity in the consideration of human rights issues” and displaying “double standards and politicization”.59 After a concerted campaign against it, the General Assembly (GA) decided to replace the Commission with a new body that would work on “the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, constructive international dialogue and cooperation”.60 The context of the establishment of the HRC is of continuing importance as the HRC was shaped by the criticisms of the Commission. The GA resolution and the HRC’s early decisions on its mechanisms and procedures reflect the politics of the time. Member States from all regions were determined that the new Council should be very different from the old Commission, though they had conflicting ideas about what was wrong with the Commission and what the Council should be. In the end, however, they created a Council that is only a little different from the Commission that preceded it. The GA passed resolution 60/251 on 15 March 2006 and the new HRC commenced on 19 June 2006. 2. MANDATE The HRC has a very broad mandate for the promotion and protection of human rights. The promotional role comes first, as it was the more broadly accepted part of the mandate. The HRC is “responsible for promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and equal manner”.61 The protection role was far more controversial. Much of the criticism of the former Commission on Human Rights related to its debates and resolutions on the human rights situation in specific countries. In the negotiations to establish the HRC there was strong pressure to deny the new Council a mandate to deal with any country situations or, at the very least, to require a special majority of HRC members to 58 For information about the Human Rights Council, including its membership, elections, agendas for meetings and resolutions, see: www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil. A Geneva-based NGO, the International Service for Human Rights, publishes reports of all HRC activities, frequent alerts on developing issues and events, and regular updates, with an email list for those wishing to be advised as new material becomes available; see: www.ishr.ch. 59 GA Resolution 60/251; PP. 9. 60 GA Resolution 60/251; OP. 4. 61 GA Resolution 60/251; OP. 2. Chapter 5: Human Rights Council | 27