GENEVA (Reuters) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will help kick off the latest and longest-ever session of the U.N.’s top human rights body on Monday, with Iran’s foreign minister, a senior Russian envoy, and the top diplomats of France and Germany among scores of leaders set to take part.
The more than five-week session of the Human Rights Council opens as the world grapples with rights concerns including Russia’s war in Ukraine, repression of dissent in Russia and Belarus, new violence between Palestinians and Israelis, and efforts to solidify a peace deal in Ethiopia that ended two years of conflict between the national government and rebels in the Tigray region.
The council, made up of 47 members countries, takes up an extensive array of human rights issues — including discrimination, the freedom of religion, right to housing or the deleterious impact of economic sanctions targeting governments on regular people — as well as country “situations” like those in Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Nicaragua and South Sudan. It usually meets three times a year.
Proponents say the Geneva-based rights body has grown in importance as a diplomatic venue because the U.N. Security Council in New York has been increasingly divided in recent years due to a major rift between affiliations among its five permanent members:
China and Russia on one side, Britain, France and the United States on the other. Speaking after Guterres and the presidents of Congo, Montenegro and Colombia on Monday will be Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amiravdrahian, between Germany’s Annalena Barbock and France’s Catherine Colonna. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will make a statement by video.
Amira Rabdrahian’s visit follows loud and protracted protests following the death in Iran of 22-year-old Masa Amini after his arrest by the country’s deputies in September.
Moscow is expected to be represented at the highest level since Russia suspended its membership on the Council last year, especially as the UN General Assembly is nearing its abolition. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, a well-known defense expert, will attend on Thursday. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will speak in a video message on the same day.
A year ago, dozens of diplomats left the Council chamber when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared on video a few days ago, speaking out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Originally, he was supposed to be there directly, but after the invasion, many Western countries closed their airspace to flights from Russia.
At the conference, the US will likely seek to pressure China over its past track record on issues such as its crackdown on pro-democracy activists and others in Hong Kong, and long-standing concerns about Tibetans and others about the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Former UN Human Rights Council member Michelle Bachelet released a terrifying report last fall, minutes before she resigned.
Western diplomats want to see the tone of the new UN Human Rights Director, Volker Türk, on the issue. He speaks right after Guterres.
The agenda included a possible extension of the tenure of the expert team known as the Commission of Inquiry into the Impact of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, and Ethiopia’s decision to appoint a board-appointed inquiry team to investigate legal issues surrounding Ethiopia.
