52nd regular session of the Human Rights Council
Item 2: General debate on the oral update by the High Commissioner
Joint statement by International Youth and Student Movement for the United Nations (ISMUN), International Federation for the Protection of the Rights of Ethnic, Religious, Linguistic & Other Minorities, Global Action on Aging, Habitat International Coalition, Ma’onah for Human Rights and Immigration, Union of Arab Jurists, International-Lawyers.Org, International Organization for the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, Meezan Center for Human Rights, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, Associazione Comunita Papa Giovanni XXIII, Geneva International Centre for Justice (GICJ)
Mr President,
I am speaking on behalf of 13 NGOs. We welcome this opportunity to express our expectation that the new High Commissioner will provide leadership in faithfully implementing the UN resolutions on combating racism.
We recall that both the general assembly and the Council have stressed the importance of fully integrating the matter of combating racism into the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as Vienna +30.
Both Civil Society and Member States have repeatedly expressed their concern over the failure by the OHCHR to give justice to the Durban Declaration of programme of Action.
At its 51st session the Council requested the UN secretariat and OHCHR to implement fully what the General Assembly had asked them to do already in 2020 for the 20th anniversary of the DDPA, including a public outreach campaign and increasing efforts to promote the true nature of the text of the DDPA.
The Council also requested the OHCHR to publish the adopted Programme of activities for the International Decade for People of African Descent in brochure format, for wide dissemination.
We have waited since the first year of the International Decade for the OHCHR to publish the Programme of the Decade and would expect that now finally in the 9th year of the Decade it will be done, in particular as a specific budget has been provided for it.
