United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

 

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations System Inter-governmental body whose 47 member states are responsible for promoting and protecting Human Rightsaround the world.

The UNHRC is the successor to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR, herein CHR), and is a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly 

The UN General Assembly established the UNHRC by adopting a resolution (A/RES/60/251) on 15 March 2006, in order to replace the previous CHR, which had been heavily criticised for allowing countries with poor human rights records to be members

The seats are distributed among the UN's Regional Groups as follows -

• 13 for Africa
• 13 for Asia
• 6 for Eastern Europe
• 8 for Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC) and 
• 7 for the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) 

The UN General Assembly, via a two-thirds majority, can suspend the rights and privileges of any Council member that it decides has persistently committed gross and systematic violations of human rights during its term of membership

The UNHRC holds regular sessions three times a year, in March, June, and September

The UNHRC can decide at any time to hold a special session to address human rights violations and emergencies, at the request of one-third of the member states. To date there have been 20 Special Sessions.

The UNHRC has addressed conflicts including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also addresses rights-related situations in countries such as in Burma, Guinea, North Korea, Côte d'Ivoire, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Libya, Iran, and Sri Lanka

The UN General Assembly elects the members who occupy the UNHRC's 47 seats.The term of each seat is three years, and no member may occupy a seat for more than two consecutive terms.