Promotion of Universality of the Standing Invitations to all Special Procedures,

Agenda item 5

Human Rights bodies and mechanisms

Mr President,

I have the honour to address the Council under Agenda item 5 on behalf of the following countries: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Maldives, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Republic of Korea, Serbia, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Zambia and the 27 Member States of the European Union.

Like one year ago, our countries once again would like to raise the issue of promoting cooperation with the special procedures of the Human Rights Council in this year of the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Our countries represent different regions and traditions. We are united by the decision to extend standing invitations to all special procedures. We believe that this constitutes a clear way to show our readiness and willingness to cooperate fully with the Human Rights Council and a concrete contribution to the strengthening of the special procedures system. Our experience is a positive one.

Certain progress has been made in the course of the last year. We note with satisfaction that unlike several past years, the number of countries that have extended standing invitations has grown during last year. We welcome the recent decisions of the Republic of Korea, Zambia and Australia to extend standing invitations to all special procedures of the Human Rights Council. Their decisions to extend standing invitations have further strengthened the cross-regional nature of this initiative.

We also note that the practical cooperation with the special procedures among all members has improved; the number of country visits has increased from 48 visits in 2006 to 62 visits in 2007.

We appreciate that the OHCHR has followed up on our suggestion of last year to give more visibility to the standing invitations on its website.

The issue of standing invitations has also been systematically raised during the UPR process and will be raised in the future. The fact that Zambia was the first country to announce the granting of a standing invitation during its UPR review is extremely encouraging. We hope that in the course of future UPR sessions other countries will follow this commendable example.

The Human Rights Council has spent considerable amount of time since last year reviewing and updating the special procedures it has inherited from the Commission on Human Rights. Our delegations are therefore of the view that the Council should intensify its activities towards universalization of standing invitations. The Council should encourage all States to join the 62 countries from all regions of the world that have already pledged to extend full co-operation to the special procedures.

We would like to stress that this should be done in an inclusive way. This initiative should preserve the voluntary nature of the commitment, while taking into account the central importance of standing invitations for the effectiveness of the Council's human rights work.

We encourage the countries running for election to the Council to extend standing invitations as part of their overall commitment. We also call upon the current members of the Council that have not extended standing invitations to consider doing so as a matter of leadership.

We invite the relevant UN bodies, in particular the OHCHR, to disseminate information on best practices relating to cooperation with special procedures. This could be done through intensified and more systematic interaction with the special procedures and other relevant existing mechanisms, or by organizing seminars in different regions with the participation of government officials and by disseminating written information on standing invitations.

Our countries undertake to support involvement in the universalization efforts by all relevant partners. A further increase in the number of standing invitations over the next few months would be a concrete contribution to the celebrations to mark the 60^th anniversary of the UDHR.