HRC Press conference 06 September 2023

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to this press briefing by the President of the UN Human Rights Council, Ambassador Vatslav Balik of the Czech Republic.

Ambassador Balik is pleased to be with you to brief you on the upcoming 54 session, and he will deliver first brief opening remarks and take your questions.

So Ambassador Balik, the floor is yours.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much, Flora.

Good morning to everybody.

It's a pleasure to be here with you in this beautiful room after the summer break.

As you know, the September, as the Secretary General of the UN says, is the busiest months for the alterable diplomacy.

We are kept pretty busy and I do feel that there were no holidays whatsoever during the summer.

So I do feel that you don't have such a impression yourself and I hope we will have a good, good debate and good exchange on what to expect during the 54th session of the Human Rights Council.

Of course, maybe I'll, is it, is it better or shall I speak up?

OK, so I'm not going to repeat the courtesy I've mentioned at the beginning.

So let me go straight to the business.

54th session, the longest ever in history of the Council.

As I've mentioned already twice this year we are adding and adding to the agenda.

The Council is pretty busy body in the UN system, but still able to deliver and still able to discuss even difficult issues.

So what we expect, we have had ahead of us 5 consecutive weeks.

We are starting next Monday at 10:00 sharp as you know and we will have as I said pretty busy agenda.

We will hear like 130 reports, 10 or updates, 50 country situations will be discussed and we will have also like 50 thematic human rights issues on our plate.

[Other language spoken]

Therefore, we will be able to achieve maximum possible participation and transparency.

We will incorporate civil society members and so on and so on.

You know the story.

But I do feel that this is really a good and important achievement for all of us to be able to use these modalities this year and throughout the year.

Let me add that also 7 investigative mechanisms are scheduled to report to the Council this session, just to name them, it's Myanmar, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela.

Racial Justice and Law Enforcement **** Commissioner, as always, will open the session in the morning.

Immediately after I'll start the meeting and he will address the human rights situation in multiple countries around the globe.

His presentation will be followed by a general debate.

That's important element because as you remember, it was no general debates in June session with Member States continuing during the next following two days hot topics for the session.

That might be something which interests you Ukraine.

Of course, we will continue to discuss what's what's happening in and around Ukraine.

We've had the substance short discussion in February, but there will be other issues like Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Sudan, Myanmar and of course member states might brought up additional issues.

There will be a panel discussion on cyber bullying against children.

As far as the number of resolutions are concerned, so far we know about more than 30 resolutions covering all aspects of human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

But as I said, or the Council is the the body driven by the Member States.

So still time to present new resolutions and new activities.

So we will see in the end how many resolutions and how many new initiatives will be adopted.

Let me seize the opportunity and say few words on efficiency process.

[Other language spoken]

I'm really glad that my two vice president, vice presidents from Luxembourg and Bolivia, actually accepted my request to propose some ideas how to really improve the efficiency of the Council.

It's not in a way that the Council is inefficient or is not working at all.

That's not the case.

But I've started by stressing that we are going to face again the longest ever Council or longest ever session in the history of the Council.

And I'm hearing a lot of compliance, especially from small delegations that we are reaching or maybe we have even reached in some cases already, the limits of those delegations actually to participate meaningfully and actively in the work of the Council.

So we need to address this issue in order to really preserve the council of the body which is accessible and able to deliver to everybody.

So hot topic, of course, there were many initiatives of the similar kind in the past, but I do believe that though we might not be able to agree on specific steps at the end of this year, the the very debate is important.

We need to really see the situation, we need to be aware of what we are witnessing right now and what might be the consequences for the Council and for the Member States.

By the way, we would like to discuss this topic also during the retreat in Prague, because, as you know, we will meet in a in an informal setting at the end of November in Prague.

And I hope that we will be able actually to address this issue and other issues during a bit of out-of-the-box debate, not necessarily following national positions, but rather using our accumulated knowledge and experience from the work of the Council for the benefit of the Council.

So what to add?

Not that much at this point.

I will try to do my best as my four vice presidents as well to really conduct the business in the smoothest possible way.

We will try to accommodate everybody.

We are ready to work for the Council, for the member states.

Yeah, I don't have that much to add.

Efficiency was mentioned, objective effectiveness, participation, those are the the words which are there as well.

So let me stop at this point.

I'm looking forward to hear your comments and your questions and I'll try to answer them in a best honest possible way.

And I'm at your disposal.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Ambassador Balek Christiano Rich from German news agency, please.

[Other language spoken]

Ambassador, I know that you are neutral and not going into the nitty gritty, but can you tell us with your head of Ambassador on and not President of the Council, what do you think is going to be the highlight or what?

What are the two or three highlights that you expect in this session?

[Other language spoken]

Take your question as always, by the way.

No, no, no, it, it depends on your perspective.

For various countries there are various highlights, but I would say certainly that the report of the commercial inquiry on Ukraine will be important, also will be, I believe, fault closely by the media.

Of course, traditionally report of the **** Commissioner, that's going to be another highlight.

But there are other highlights because if you went off, you looked into the programme of the session, there are all regions covered and all subjects again covered.

So depends on national preferences and national perspectives.

How do you see the Council?

The point is actually that, and I have tried to mention that during those introductory remarks, that the Council is owned by the Member States and the Council should be and must be of actually have added value for everybody.

So we will cover various topics, country specific thematic topics.

And I don't want to really pick up specific specific subjects because I'm I'm meeting basically these days various regional groups and I was not able to manage all of them up to now.

But I've met three of them and I've heard various priorities and various concerns.

So if I gave you kind of in my answer, what I've heard so far would not be the full picture.

So maybe after the session we can look back and really evaluate and judge what was the most important.

Because in the end, in the end, I'm in the hands of the member States.

And if the Member States, for example, decided to bring forward additional issue, we might not know right now, my answer would not be complete and might mislead the audience.

So from the perspective of the president, all the topics are important because they are covering all aspects of of life and such that will be dealt with.

And yeah, from the media perspective, I don't know, honestly, again, for German outlets, some topics are more important than other.

If you are sitting for example, in South Africa or Latin America, the perspective might be different and the question might be phrased in a, in a different way.

So I'm really sorry to, to, to be able to pick up two or three topics in order to facilitate you to make the headlines.

But really, everything is important and only optics might differ.

[Other language spoken]

So I'll, I'll pinpoint the issues that I think we might be interested.

And I was wondering on if you could say a little bit more on.

So you mentioned the Commission of inquiry on Ukraine.

I understand also that the special rapporteur on Russia is going to present a report and also that her mandate is up for renewal.

So it'd be good if, if you have some sort of ideas also around when this is happening, if you could just give us the, the dates.

And I was also wondering if you're expecting anything specific on Iran given the, the anniversary of the start of the of the protests in Iran.

[Other language spoken]

So let me start with Russia.

It's going to be the first presentation of the reporter on Russia and my situation in Russia.

I do believe that the the Member States and Observer says will listen carefully and then we will see what will be the outcome of the debate.

I cannot actually preempt what might be or what might not be the outcome.

It's important that she's going to report, she's ready and we'll see.

Again, it's not up to me to really make preliminary, preliminary conclusions on Ukraine.

I think what is important that the Commission of inquiry is in full strength, which is important.

It's working in full speed and full capacity.

And again, we will hear what we will get as an update on 25th of September.

[Other language spoken]

Again, I'm not going to speculate what the Commission will say.

And I think it's going to be consistent what we've heard in March and what we are hearing regularly from the report of the **** Commission on, on human rights, because I, I don't expect really kind of it big surprises because they are consistent and they are working quite hard.

They are verifying datas.

They are trying to get us broad as possible access.

[Other language spoken]

But for, for the debate in the council, it might be really enriching to, to get new facts and new, new information on Iran.

Well, what what I can add on Iran, Iran is regularly on the on the agenda of the Council.

We are following closely, not necessarily we as the President and Vice President, but the Council follows pretty closely the agenda we've established in N22 fake finding Commission following that killing of of Gina Mahasa.

And we've heard first row update last June and the first report is scheduled for March next year.

So that is that is factual information and well, I don't know what to add the the issue is regularly addressed not only by quite a number of member states, both NGOs and civil society members are raising gladness in the Council about the situation in Iran on a regular basis.

So this is this is part of our basically basically daily work.

Iran in my view will stay on the agenda of all the facts and reports are concerned or mentioned the the calendar and you have some of the answers in your A-Z book.

So you can always check actually what kind of a specific schedule we have for specific topics.

[Other language spoken]

Before I take questions online, Lawrence Eros Swiss news Agency and then Catherine.

[Other language spoken]

Could you elaborate a little bit on the efficiency process?

What did you what did you managed to get from the the Bureau and what are the sticking points with between Member States that you were alluding to and and are we heading towards the scenario of potential fourth session during the year in order to diminish the the workload in the same session for the Member States?

[Other language spoken]

Full session is not being debated at least that for the time being.

All the all the proposals, all the information we are trying to discuss these days are are posted on the extranet.

There is a non paper which was distributed at the end of August.

We are in a kind of a consultative phase with the Member States.

We are trying to be first transparent.

Maximum transparency is is the key.

We are listening really to everybody because in the end it's the decision of the Council whether we will be able actually to improve our working methods or not.

Of course there are some low hanging fruits which could be easily decided only if we found a well on the side of the Member States.

There are some more difficult issues with some political implications.

But my my take on this is, first, the UN system is created in a way that each and every member state should have an opportunity to speak.

But second, I will add that we should be able to listen and it's our obligation to listen because our obligation is to behave responsibly, seek for compromises or seek for common ground.

And we are facing right now the situation and wage.

And that what I'm being told, some delegations do have limited capacity even to listen because of the, the, the agenda is so huge.

The council is scheduled in a way that really it's overstretching their capacity actually to follow what is happening in the council.

And as you know, one of my priorities was the participation and participation means meaningful participation.

It's not just sitting in the room.

It means sitting in the room listening, thinking about what you hear and maybe reflecting on that in your positions, in your, in your approach.

Honestly, we are proposing some ideas.

As I've said, they are posted on the extranet.

We are asking the countries and sales society members and NGOs.

If you have good idea, please let us know.

[Other language spoken]

We are happy to incorporate those good ideas on which we will be able to find a consensus among among ourselves.

But I'm I'm not naive in a way that I can force my opinion to others.

I need really understanding of everybody and consensus in the council for kind of a those tweaks or those changes necessarily for improvements.

And then I'm really making a plea.

Please behave responsibly because the Human Rights Council is the very, very important, very valuable UN body and our responsibility is to use it not to destroy it, not intentionally maybe, but by overloading the agenda and by depriving some members, some countries and some sort of side members.

And you also you can extrapolate from being able to participate meaningfully and in a kind of a positive and reasonable manner.

So I don't know what what's going to be the outcome.

My role is to really make the people aware this is the situation, make proposals.

This is how I feel we can move on.

But I cannot force anybody actually to agree with me.

I can only discuss, persuade, propose and hopefully if we behave all well responsibly at the end of this year, we might have some results.

And that's the process.

What we do right now is just just part of the process.

It's just one stone in a, in a complex mosaic and we'll see what what will happen in the future.

But our obligation is to contribute, to really raise the issue, make the people aware.

Well, we, we do believe we can move this way or that way.

[Other language spoken]

This is the process and we'll see.

[Other language spoken]

Catherine Fiancan Bongkonga, please.

[Other language spoken]

Catherine Fiancan Bongkonga.

[Other language spoken]

First of all, I've seen that there will be an oral update on Sudan.

Could you give us more details about that?

Will there be anyone from the UN mission based in Sudan?

That's my first question.

And also question related to the presence of UN missions in Africa.

As you know, often the human rights offices are integrated in the missions.

We've seen that in Africa, there is a series of coup happened recently in the last month in Mali.

The the representatives of UN are going to withdraw and leave the country.

It is going to be the same in DRC in DR Congo before the end.

I mean, I think that the deadline is December of this year.

So how do you see that?

First of all, could you elaborate a little bit how countries are seeing that?

And will there be a discussion about the presence of UN missions in the field, particularly in Africa during this session?

Is there anything where you can discuss that?

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for the question.

Actually, short answer would be my opinion doesn't matter because I'm president of the Council and trying to really serve everybody in the Council in order to preserve the ability of the Council to deliver on many issues.

And the next part of that answer would be no, I cannot comment because I cannot preempt what will, what will happen in the council.

The Council, as I've said already twice, I think is the Council of member states.

And of course, we are trying to prepare ourselves very well for the debate, which will certainly cover many African subjects.

You know that Sudan was hot topic during the special session.

It's not going to disappear probably, but I cannot preempt or speculate in which way the Council will address the situation.

There are many speculations, but I'm not going to feed those speculations what will happen and what will not happen.

What I see is a really intensive involvement of African countries in what is happening in in Africa, which is good, which somehow supports the the narrative that African problems are touched upon first, firstly by African States and then of course Council is available Council, it's at our disposal.

[Other language spoken]

I can only facilitate the process.

It's not up to the Council to really leave the usual UN framework and comment on specific situations which are not in the in the Council's mandate.

So we will see what will happen.

As I said, yeah, I'm not sure I've satisfied you.

But again, my role as the President of the Council is to facilitate the process rather than to speculate and to to somehow force my own ideas how specific situations should be solved.

[Other language spoken]

Yuri Aprelev from the university, Russian news agent Merci Pascal welcome my question and thank you President, for this briefing.

The Russian representation for a year is saying that the Human Rights Council is politicised by the Western countries, that politics is more important that than human rights issues.

Do you share this analysis and have you how to say noticed that since the past half year since the start of the conflict in in Ukraine as Human Rights Council is more divided than it was before and if it's how to say making things harder to work on human rights issues because of that.

[Other language spoken]

I don't have that long memory to really make it reasonable or whether somehow general judgement to an extent the Council is politicised more now than before.

Of course, Council is not working in a vacuum and all the all the issues which we are witnessing every day are influencing our work.

It's not just the situation in Ukraine, it's situation everywhere.

As I've said, the Council is addressing all the situation, all the human situations around around the globe.

So I'm not going to say that the situation in in Ukraine and war in Ukraine is not influencing the work of the Council.

But I don't think that the situation is influencing the Council in a way that it is more politicised, less able to deliver, etcetera.

I see a lot of lot of positive signs within the Council.

I see the countries able and willing to engage on many topics.

We might disagree on many issues, but on the other hand, we are still able to pass 2/3 of resolutions by consensus and the rest through dialogue and through consultations.

So as a matter of fact, I do not subscribe to that kind of a dark picture that the council is not functioning and not able to deliver and it's should be abolished and it's part of of the history.

It's not the case, of course, the situation is is not easy, but it was never easy.

[Other language spoken]

Again, it very much depends on your perspective, because we Europeans tend to see more intensively what is happening in our neighbourhood.

But I can imagine that if I came from Latin America or from Asia or from Africa, my optics will be slightly different and I would see different accents.

As I said, from my perspective, I think I see the council delivering, able to discuss, able to decide.

And I'm proud for that.

Because if you look at other international bodies, you cannot actually say that everybody or every, every, by the way institution or every UN body in is in a such a good shape as the Rights Council.

Of course, situation can always be better.

Part of the world is not getting better as we speak.

So thanks God we are having the Council and we are having the platform at which we can really discuss even such a difficult issues like the war of aggression against Ukraine.

[Other language spoken]

I will take a question from a journalist online if you could, please.

Mohammed Iqbal from Anadolu Turkish, Turkish News Agency.

Mohammed, if you could ask your question.

[Other language spoken]

President for briefing.

You have mentioned many hot topics that we will discuss, discussed during the Human Rights Council.

There is an another hot topic, some people continuing to burn Holy Book Quran in some European countries.

Are you planning to discuss this issue during this season?

[Other language spoken]

As you know the the issue was discussed during the urgent debate during the June's Council and the **** Commissioner is going to have to make a follow up of that during September.

So it will be on the agenda by definition.

But on the other hand, I do believe that people will be able to relate, address this particular issue in a wider by the perspective and we will not allow ******** to get so emotional as in June and Muhammad.

The the oral update of the **** Commissioner on the issue of religious hatred will take place on October 6th.

[Other language spoken]

Do we have do we have any more questions?

[Other language spoken]

What do you go Phoenix TV please.

[Other language spoken]

I got another question for another hot topic on the do most countries show little concern on the Fukushima discharge treated water.

You know, because on your new agenda I saw in the item environment has no mentioned only to treated the aquatic ecosystem water and on the health rights has nothing mentioned as you acknowledge is that anything will be happened on this discharge water be mentioned on the next session.

[Other language spoken]

This issue has been raised many times, but by some Member States.

Environmental issues integral part of the work of the Council and as you have seen in the A-Z book, there will be a discussion and the special reporter on toxic waste will present his report to the Council.

So this Council, this this agenda will be discussed September.

[Other language spoken]

Another question for you know, recently UN has launched a report on the trafficking into force criminality in Asia and will you mentioned in the next session.

[Other language spoken]

I'm very sorry to repeat that, but I'm not the one deciding about the agenda.

It's the decision of the Member States.

Every and any member state can propose an agenda to be discussed and we can then only have supplanted substantive debate and possible actions.

But yeah, but is that one of the hot topic or again we should have a debate what is hot and what is cold?

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, depends again on the perspective.

How do you see the hot topic?

How would you phrase what is the hot topic and what is not hot topic?

[Other language spoken]

What is hot and what is not hot?

The debate might be pretty heated on every issue and might be pretty constructive and cold on some other issues.

So I'm not going to really make that judgement because I don't know what is the definition.

[Other language spoken]

So on hot topics, I was wondering if there was news out today that we're on our way to be the have the hottest year on record.

What what is going to happen on climate change during the during the session and also on politicisation and divisions in the council.

I was wondering, I know there's the, the elections for council members are not happening here, but I'm the fact that Russia is in the running to become a council member.

Is that something that's going to impact discussions or do you sort of expect discussions around that to sort of spill over into the council?

[Other language spoken]

Russia is running for a seat in the Rights Council, but that's the that's the agenda being covered by our colleagues in New York General Assembly.

We'll decide and I have no nothing to add to that.

It's the question rather for the new president of the General Assembly of our our colleagues in in New York member states will vote for new members.

So again, I have nothing to add and no role for the president of the Council on environmental issues and climate change again, yeah, it's going to be on the agenda from the issue will be addressed from various perspectives.

The issue is very, very important for quite a few countries.

So I don't expect that the the agenda will disappear from the from the work of the Council.

And we are not talking just about the September Council.

It's going to stay with us, but don't push me to speculate what is happening around us and why.

This summer was pretty hot because I was planning to work in the garden, but I had to stay in the in the house because it was pretty cold and raining for a week in the Czech Republic.

I don't know what was the weather in Geneva.

But of course this debate is, is pretty complex and I would really leave scientists to, to really address the global warming agenda from they, the datas they're having.

[Other language spoken]

But sorry, are there specific, what specific events are you expecting that will address the issue of climate change during the, the council?

I'm really sorry, I don't know by heart the agenda of the next 5 weeks.

[Other language spoken]

Please don't give me such a tricky question because I would have spent the last couple of days actually to learning them by heart.

[Other language spoken]

What I can tell you, Nina, is that we'll have 4 specific meetings in connections to climate change with three different reports from Special Rapporteur on toxic waste on the toxic impact of proposed climate change solution.

We also have a report from OHCHR on the future of the right to work on connection with climate change and the third report from the Advisory committee of the Human Rights Council that will focus on the impact of technologies for climate protections and it's in their impact on climate change.

And on top of that, we'll also have a final discussion, panel discussion on youth participation in decision making when it comes to climate change issues.

Do we have any other questions?

Do we have any questions from Journalist Online?

[Other language spoken]

Well, thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Well, thank you very much for attending this press conference.

We'll look forward to seeing you in the next 5 weeks.

[Other language spoken]

Should you have any questions, we have a series of press conference that will take place during these five weeks.

We'll share them with you by e-mail and feel free to contact us should you want to have any interview with any of the speakers of this 54 session.

And don't forget to follow us on social media.

We have a hashtag HRC 54, and we look forward to see you in this broad conversation on human rights over the next 5 weeks.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you also for my side.

It was a real pleasure and privilege to meet you again, I hope.

We will see each other later on this year or in the years to come and I'll be maybe more open minded as far as your questions are concerned.

Thank you so much and have a good day and please follow us.

[Other language spoken]