Asian Group Meeting on HRC -Feb.14 -LR

Report of the Meeting of the 14th February 2007, 10h-12h:

Asian Group: Expert level meeting on Human Rights Council


Sri Lanka chairmanship


The purpose of this meeting was to discuss one more time the draft text of a possible Asian Group Statement that could be made at the next informal consultations on the timetable of the Human Right Council (HRC). The changes to the draft statement of the Asian Group were based on the President’s revised draft timetable for the 4th session of the HRC which will be held from the 12th of March to the 5th of April 2007 in Geneva.


The Asian Group was of the view that during the 1st year of the HRC, priority should be given to institutional-building, which should be completed by June this year. In that context, the Group was of the view that not enough time was devoted to institutional-building. On the contrary, the Group was of the view that there was too much time allocated to the “related debates” in the draft timetable. According to them, this time had to be used for institutional building.


Moreover, the Group was of the view that more time should be allocated during the Fourth Session for discussion at the three Working Group (WG). They added that only a few session have been provided in the draft timetable during the fourth weeks for “progress reports” of the three WG.


The Asian Group was also of the view that the High Level Segment should be held only once a year. In this respect, the Group reach an understanding that the High Level Segment had to be held in March/April when the Council meets for four weeks. In this respect, the Group also came to an understanding that the main session of the Council was the March-April session.


Moreover, the Group added that there was a need for a general debate after the High Level Segment. The general debate had to last at least one day.


The delegates also insisted that the report of the High Commissioners had to be available at least one week early in order for the delegations to have all the relevant information at their disposal.


Since there were no other comments the meeting was finished. The Chairman concluded saying that he would make the appropriate changes to the draft statement of the Group.