CLOSING STATEMENT BY CHAIRPERSON ANNE ANDERSON

GENEVA, 30 April 1999
OHCHR/99/04/30/C


Commission on Human Rights, 55th session
Geneva, 22 March - 30 April 1999


Distinguished delegates,

This has been a long and difficult six weeks for everyone here. Difficult for some of you because of things said and actions taken with which you strongly disagree. Difficult for others because of what has been left undone - things left unsaid and actions left untaken when heart and conscience would have dictated otherwise. Difficult for all of us because of the breadth and depth of human misery detailed across so many agenda items. Because of the gap between standards and reality, between the need for action and our capacity to act.

No session of the Commission on Human Rights is ever easy. Nor, as long as the world remains as it is, should it be. This Commission is not a cocoon - its business is truth, not complacency.

This year there were some particular difficulties. Our deliberations throughout were overshadowed by the Kosovo crisis. Our work on country situations was especially sensitive. And the discussion on review of mechanisms threw into relief sharply differing views about the direction our future work should take.

On Kosovo, my initial concern was that we at the Commission would not sufficiently take account of the tragedy unfolding in the region. This is a crisis whose roots lie in rights violations and whose solution can only be built on restored respect for human rights. How could it not loom large in our deliberations ?

In the event, the Commission did not look away. Our two-hour debate on 1st April was an important start; we subsequently voted on three resolutions and heard weekly updates from the High Commissioner on the reports of human rights monitors in the field. We finish having heard again this morning from the High Commissioner and from UNHCR.

On country situations resolutions, each of you will take away your own assessment. I would make just one personal observation. Looking across the range of resolutions, I was struck by the efforts made to have texts reflect evolving situations, to identify positive developments as well as ones felt to be negative. I hope this may offer some reassurance to those concerned about a fossilation of work at this Commission.


On the review of mechanisms, we managed yesterday to find consensus on a way forward. Although we pored over language, every one of us knows that progress here depends on political will. All of us have a huge interest in seeing that the working group we established succeeds. It can become a meeting ground or a battle ground; the choice is ours. But I take it from the fact that all delegations were prepared to step back from voting, and to live with the compromises involved in a consensus outcome, that we want to find some way of moving forward together. If so, this group holds promise of worthwhile achievement.

On our overall work at the 55th session, the secretariat has prepared the usual statistics which provide a snapshot of the session. These statistics are readily available to all delegations and I will quote only a couple. We had 37 visiting dignitaries, mostly at Ministerial level. It says something of the significance of this Commission that so many senior political figures felt it worthwhile to come here personally and make a contribution. We adopted 82 resolutions, 58 by consensus. There is a tremendous amount of substance in these resolutions and they bear careful reading. We all know, however, that their value lies in the extent to which they become living texts, not documents on shelves.

Our first experience of our new agenda was, I believe, successful and there were solid achievements in many areas. I referred in my opening remarks to the quiet incremental work that will eventually help to change people’s lives - that kind of progress was made under a range of agenda items. A special mention is warranted of the substantial output of the Racism working group, under the very able leadership of Ambassador Diallo of Senegal.

For me some personal highlights of the session were

- the address by the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in which he once again underlined the priority he attaches to human rights work. “The promotion and defence of human rights is at the heart of every aspect of our work and every article of our Charter”.

- the special segment on children’s rights, where we focused on marginalisation and exclusion. There was a real dynamism in the discussion. I described the statistics we heard that day - from ILO, WHO, UNICEF and Radda Barnen - as “shameful”. We need to be shocked not just into indignation, but into action. We must look to follow-up.

- On womens’ rights, I felt privileged to be part of a panel that included High Commissioner Mary Robinson, Assistant Secretary General Angela King, the Chair of CSW, and a representative of CEDAW. There are miles to go, but we have travelled a distance when a panel like that can come together in the margins of the Commission.

- the input by the 23 regional and national human rights institutions from all parts of the world. The first layer of human rights protection is at national level and the improvement of protection at that level must be among our top priorities. It is immensely encouraging to see the important strides forward that are being made.

I would like to share some of my impressions from the podium over the past six weeks.

To the NGOs, I would say how impressed and often deeply moved I was by your contributions overall. NGOs are our reality check, a vital link to the countless individuals around the world who are victims of human rights violations and who look to the Commission on Human Rights to acknowledge the wrongs and ease their pain.

I have made a point of meeting with NGOs through our session and I have benefited greatly from our encounters. I had my final meeting with you yesterday morning. Many of you expressed frustration; you have come long distances to the Commission at considerable expense and some of you ask why. You raised with me questions of transparency, of partnership, of the tone of some of the plenary debate. I could offer only partial answers.

After six weeks in the chair my conviction is strengthened that, if the NGO voice is to continue to be heard loud and clear at this Commission, if it is not to be tuned out by Governments, we need to look at time management questions. In particular, the small minority of NGOs who are not respectful of the Commission’s time - who make essentially the same speech under a wide range of agenda items - must realise that this approach is deeply unfair to the majority of their NGO partners.

I would like us to look at all these issues in constructive dialogue with our NGO colleagues.

To the rapporteurs and independent experts I would say: you are doing an immensely important service to the international community. We, as the body which has appointed you, must stand up for your integrity when it is challenged and, most fundamentally, for your safety if ever and whenever it is threatened. I also believe that we must address the mismatch between the importance and sensitivity of your task and the resources available to support you.

But one area where there is certainly room for improvement is the involvement of the rapporteurs in the work of the plenary. With some honourable exceptions, we tended to receive fleeting visits from our rapporteurs and experts. As Chair, I struggled hard throughout the session to maintain the primacy of the plenary and I believe strongly that this must be respected. I hope the ongoing work on review of mechanisms will improve the quality of dialogue with rapporteurs.

And what of us, the governments ? I expressed a conviction in my opening statement that there is a commitment and concern about human rights on the part of each delegation in this room. Six weeks later, I maintain that conviction even if it was truly tested at times. I listened carefully as many delegations painstakingly shared their national experiences and truly enriched our debate. I saw close-up the incredibly hard work done by so many delegates, the patience and dedication that went into dialogue, bridge-building, trying to achieve meaningful results. I salute so much of what you have worked so hard to bring about.

Much of the time, as I followed developments, I felt tremendously heartened by a real sense of common purpose built on universal standards. At other times, I asked myself what the point - scoring and brinkmanship had to do with the real world and the real causes we are here to serve. There is scope for all of us to do some stock-taking in the aftermath of this session, looking searchingly at our own performance as well as how we perceive the performance of others.

A very important aspect of my concluding remarks is to express heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed so much to this session.
- First and foremost to the Bureau members: Ambassador Romans Baumanis, Ambassador Luis Alberto Padilla Menendez, Ambassador Shambhu Ram Simkhada, and Mr. Raouf Chatty. Also to the expanded Bureau members, Ambassador Kamel Morjane, Ambassador Bjørn Skogmo and his colleague Petter Wille, and Ambassador Hewa Palihakkara,. They are a stalwart team in every respect. I am deeply grateful for their support and look forward to continuing to work together over the coming year.

- to the High Commissioner, Mary Robinson. I have known for a long time the High Commissioner’s unstinting commitment to human rights causes, and I saw it again throughout this session. She left the Commission once only: to be present for 24 hours at OAU deliberations in Mauritius. The task this High Commissioner has set herself - to reach out and at the same time to speak out - sometimes seems nearly impossible. I believe she deserves all our support, tangibly expressed.

- to the Deputy High Commissioner and all the staff of the Office. Most particularly to the podium team - the secretary Francisco Aguillar Urbina, Maria Francisa Ize-Charrin and Guennadi Lebakine - the floor team, and the backroom team. All of them worked extraordinary hours and showed great grace under pressure. The conference services, the press service and the translators also did valiant work.

- to my own team, my close colleague Niall Burgess and our secretary Imelda Devaney. Both contributed far beyond the call of duty. Niall become well known to many of you for his floor work and his endless readiness to listen, and I greatly valued his advice throughout.

My thanks also to all of the delegations in the room, for your good will, your co-operation and in so many cases your generous hospitality. I should mention at this point why I have not offered the traditional reception by the Chair. It is not that my authorities are lacking in generosity: SF 30,000 was allocated for the purpose of such a reception. But given the resource-starved condition of so many human rights activities, it seemed hard to justify such outlay. I would like you to know therefore that this amount is being contributed instead to the UN Trust Fund for implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and will appear as a donation in the name of all participants at CHR 55. I hope you will feel it was a reception foregone in a good cause.

And so to my final question: did we indeed “take responsibility”, as I hoped we would in my opening statement. I will try to give an honest answer. In many respects I felt we did - in our debates and resolutions across very many agenda items, in finding a compromise outcome on review of mechanisms, in trying to shape a response to outside developments taking place as we met.

In other respects, the answer is more measured. I still feel without a convincing answer to charges of selectivity on the part of this Commission. I also believe we need to challenge ourselves to ensure that the moral outrage rightly provoked by the Kosovo crisis does not become blunted when we confront conflict situations in other parts of the world. Neither can we forget about those - whether in this room or outside this room - who truly believe in the justice of their cause and who feel this Commission has failed them. Many are willing to pay a high personal price for their convictions, as all of us who have recently passed through the Place des Nations have borne witness.

But in acknowledging our shortcomings - human and institutional - I do not want in any way to minimise or devalue what we have managed to achieve together over the past six weeks. The human rights road is a long one, and if the steps are sometimes modest, they are nevertheless important. It would be a mistake to underestimate the collective impact of all our debates and all our resolutions. Words matter, sometimes because they hold promise of immediate action, but also because over the longer term they can have a powerful persuasive effect. What we have said and done has a resonance, and over time I believe it will have a stronger resonance.

I hope we all finish our session strengthened in conviction and sense of purpose. We have contributed to the most important of causes, and I feel truly privileged to have been part of the effort