PRESS BRIEFING BY MONICA GRAYLEY, SPOKESPERSON FOR GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT MARÍA FERNANDA ESPINOSA

Hello, everyone!

Good afternoon.

How are you today?

GENERAL ASSEMBLY – HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL ELECTION

President María Fernanda Espinosa chaired today the plenary meeting on the election of new members of the Human Rights Council.

In total, 18 Member States presented their candidacies for 18 vacancies in the UN body which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

There were five seats each for the Group of African States, and group the Asia-Pacific States, respectively; two vacancies were made available for the Eastern European States; the Group of Latin America and Caribbean had three seats to be filled, as well as the Group of Western European and other States also with three vacant seats. Newly elected members will start their tenure on 1^st January 2019.

The members elected today were: Argentina, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Bahrein, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Czech Republic, Denmark, Eritrea, Fiji, India, Italy, Philippines, Somalia, Togo, Uruguay.

The following 18 states have thus been elected Members of the Human Rights Council for a mandate of three years starting 1 January 2019.

[Results of the vote is as follows based on the order of the regional groups: Group of African States: Burkina Faso 183, Togo 181, Cameroon 176, Somalia 170, Eritrea 160

Asia-Pacific: India 188, Fiji 187, Bangladesh 178, Bahrain 165, Philippines 165

Eastern European States: Bulgaria 180, Czech Republic 178

Latin America and the Caribbean: Bahamas 180, Uruguay 177, Argentina 172,

Group of Western Europe and Other States: Italy 180, Austria 171, Denmark 167, United States 1]

MALAYSIA – DEATH PENALTY

President Espinosa welcomes the announcement by the Government of Malaysia in regard with abolishing the death penalty in the country. She thinks it is encouraging that more countries are complying to the GA resolution on this issue which was adopted on 19 December 2016 requesting Member States of the United Nations to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

PGA’s AGENDA

Today, President María Fernanda Espinosa is meeting a group of parliamentarians from India. She will hold a phone call with the Ambassador of Canada to the UN. She will have separate bilateral meetings with the Ambassadors of Italy. Late afternoon, she will receive at the PGA´s Office, the special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people.

And finally, Ms. Espinosa will grant an interview to Al Quds Newspaper and to Canal de la Ciudad, from Argentina.

CALENDAR OF GA MEETINGS & QUESTIONS

And yesterday I was asked about the report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. Our colleagues from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights tell us that the meeting will take place on 23^rd October in the Third Committee (The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee). This information is online under “dialogues” on our website. www.un.org/ga/third/73

This is all for today. Now the floor is yours…