MINELRES: News on minorities from the UN Commission on Human Rights
MINELRES moderator
[email protected]
Tue Apr 27 18:49:19 2004
Original sender: Chris Chapman <[email protected]>
Dear friends,
The Commission has adopted 3 resolutions / decisions on minorities, all
by consensus.
At present they do not seem to be availabe on the website but I hope
they soon will be.
Decision L43 creates a voluntary fund for minority-related activities!
Although this is of course very exciting news, firstly it has to be
approved by the General Assembly or the Secretary General, and secondly,
such a fund relies on states making financial contributions to it. As
yet, I have spoken to some states about this and none have shown great
enthusiasm to contribute funds. But we will be lobbying on this.
Decision L47, originally intended to establish an itnernational year for
minorities, was amended (by the UK again) to merely "taking note of" the
Sub-commission's recommendation to establish a year, and to encourage UN
agencies to cooperate to contribute to the implementation of the
minorities declaration. Apparently the UK argued that a decision to
establish a year should be taken by the General Assembly.
Resolution (L.75) calls, among other things, for the High Commissioner
to request the opinion of states and NGOs on the results and
achievements of the WGM (this was requested by the UK - they are
critical of the WGM and want to build up support to have it closed), and
submit a study of "options for the timely identification of minority
issues and pertaining measures ... taking into account the assessment
and recommendations by the Working Group as well as the proposals
contained in Document E/CN.4/2004/75 ...". The document referred to is
the report of the High Commissioner on possible mechanisms to improve
minority protection, and the proposals contained within it include a
Special Rep. of the Sec. General on Minorities, a Special Rapporteur on
Minorities, etc. So the new study should evaluate the advantages and
disadvantages of creating such mechanisms.
The resolution also calls on UN agencies to cooperate more on minority
issues particular with regard to the implementation of the Millenium
Development Goals, adn to engage with governmetns in dialogue fo that
purpose.
Kind regards,
Chris Chapman
International Officer
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