Human Rights Council Opens Fifty-Fifth Regular Session and Holds Minute of Silence in Memory of All Victims of Human Rights Violations Worldwide – Press Release

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26 February 2024

The Human Rights Council this morning opened its fifty-fifth regular session, hearing statements from the President of the General Assembly, the United Nations Secretary-General, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland.

Omar Zniber, President of the Human Rights Council, called on the Council to observe a minute of silence in the memory of all victims of human rights violations worldwide. Issues of food security and the climate crisis lay at the heart of the Council’s concerns. The fifty-fifth session was the longest since the Council’s creation. Its main objective needed to be achieving concrete progress in the field of human rights. Mr. Zniber called on all stakeholders to contribute to this goal.

Dennis Francis, President of the seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly, said it was deeply concerning that human rights were under grave and increasing threat around the world. Conflicts and climate impacts had left a staggering 300 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance, some 114 million of them being refugees and other displaced peoples. The United Nations needed to use its commanding platforms to speak out in the demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and for the opening of corridors to render urgently needed assistance and care to the 1.5 million displaced and unhoused Palestinians.

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DENNIS FRANCIS, President of the General Assembly, said 75 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was deeply concerning that human rights were under grave and increasing threat around the world. Conflicts and climate impacts had left a staggering 300 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance, some 114 million of them being refugees and other displaced peoples. In the Gaza Strip, over 90 per cent of the population were displaced, teetering on the brink of starvation, and trapped in the depths of an impending public health catastrophe.

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The world must not fail the victims of human rights violations. The United Nations needed to use its commanding platforms to speak out in the demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and for the opening of corridors to render urgently needed assistance and care to the 1.5 million displaced and unhoused Palestinians. Furthermore, donor States should uphold and sustain their contributions to the critical funding necessary for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to discharge its mandated responsibilities to the Palestinians. The Agency had and continued to be an indispensable lifeline of support to the Palestinians. It was vital not to stand-by as callous observers, and be seen as complicit in the expanding web of dehumanisation.

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ANTÓNIO GUTERRES, United Nations Secretary-General, said …The world was becoming less safe by the day. The rule of law, and the rules of war, were being undermined. The Security Council was often deadlocked, unable to act on the most significant peace and security issues. The Council’s lack of unity on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and on Israel’s military operations in Gaza following the horrific terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October, had severely – perhaps fatally – undermined its authority. The Council needed serious reform to its composition and working methods.

Nothing could justify Hamas’ deliberate killing, injuring, torturing and kidnapping of civilians, the use of sexual violence – or the indiscriminate launching of rockets towards Israel. And nothing justified the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Tens of thousands of civilians, including women and children, had been killed in Gaza. Humanitarian aid was still completely insufficient. Rafah was the core of the humanitarian aid operation, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was the backbone of that effort. An all-out Israeli offensive on the city would put the final nail in the coffin of the United Nations’ aid programmes. Mr. Guterres repeated his call for a humanitarian ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.