Meeting of the president of the Human Rights Council with NGOS

Geneva, 16 March 2018

The Association Miraisme International attended a Meeting of the President of the Human Rights Council with NGOs on March 16, 2018. It was the first meeting of the President, Vojislav Šuc, with NGOs since his appointment. The event was organised as part of the informal meetings held in parallel to the 37th session of the Human Rights Council.

The meeting started with an introduction by Mr. President, explaining his work and priorities as President of the Human Rights Council. Among the main priorities were identified to solve issues related to the work of the Human Rights Council (not only his but of the previous presidents too), close the gape between the Geneva and New York offices (for this he plans to visit New York after each session), communicate more to media about the work of the Council (he had found that media lack awareness of their work). In more detail Mr. Šuc spoke about modernization of the Human Rights Council and how to rationalize the work of the Council. Additionally, he gave an overview of the work for the 37th session of the Human Rights Council so far, mentioning that the statements from civil society show a continuously increasing trend during the session, hence the interest to the Council grows. In particular, it was noted the privileges NGOs have in the Geneva office compare to the New York office, i.e. to have their space. Afterwards, NGOs passed their comments and suggestions to the work of the Human Rights Council followed by discussions with the President and the representatives of the Human Rights Council.