Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-20-Speech-3-328"
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"en.20080220.15.3-328"2
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".
I am pleased to have been given an opportunity to talk to you about the Human Rights Council.
Allow me to present another very important development within the framework of the Human Rights Council, namely the introduction of a universal periodic review, to which the European Union attaches great importance. This instrument should offer a means of reviewing the human rights situation in all the Member States under the same conditions. Members of the European Union which will already be subject to this mechanism by the spring (April and May) are currently making thorough preparations for this review. We will strive for maximum transparency and efficiency in that process. The method by which this periodic review is going to be conducted will have a significant effect on the credibility of the Human Rights Council as a whole.
By placing this item on the agenda for the plenary, the European Parliament has confirmed the importance that Europe as a whole gives to the Human Rights Council. It is a central, global body for the protection of human rights. The European Union is a firm advocate of an effective Human Rights Council. We have worked very hard to ensure that, in its final form, it offers a firm basis for a fast and efficient response to the most serious human rights violations.
As we know, in December last year the final institutional package for the Human Rights Council was adopted and now is the time for the Council to be fully operational. The sixth session of the Council which took place in September and December last year produced many important results, which I am not going to list here. It is our ambition to continue this work at the seventh and eighth working sessions.
The seventh session will take place next month and it will be very busy. Together with the eighth session, to take place in the first two weeks of June, it is to debate the extension of 25 special rapporteurs’ mandates, regular reports by special rapporteurs and several disturbing human rights situations in some countries with regard to certain topics.
From the point of view of the European Union, the extension of mandates for the special rapporteurs for Burma/Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, and Somalia is of crucial importance for the seventh session of the Human Rights Council.
In addition, the European Union will use every opportunity offered by the Council to draw attention to the worrying state of human rights in other places around the world. To that effect it will get involved in interactive dialogues with individual special rapporteurs and with the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Interactive dialogues are a significant new instrument of the Council, and the European Union will continue striving to consolidate it as one of the key means offered by regular Council sessions to address individual issues.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, for the period of its Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Slovenia has listed intercultural dialogue as one of its priorities. Therefore, we are pleased that this issue will also be given due attention at the seventh session of the Human Rights Council.
The invitation sent to the High Representative of the Alliance of Civilisations, Mr Sampaio, to attend the session indicates an enhanced awareness that the activities of the Alliance of Civilisations help to strengthen religious tolerance, which is also one of the European Union’s priorities in the human rights area."@en1
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