16/L.27 The imperative need to respect the established procedures and practices of the General Assembly in the elaboration of new norms and standards and their subsequent integration into existing international human rights law

GE.11-12162

Human Rights Council Sixteenth session Agenda item 8 Follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action

South Africa*: draft resolution

16/… The imperative need to respect the established procedures and practices of the General Assembly in the elaboration of new norms and standards and their subsequent integration into existing international human rights law

The Human Rights Council,

Recalling all the universally recognized human rights as elaborated and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other relevant core human rights instruments,

Underlining the imperative need for the international human rights system to respect the established procedures and practices of the General Assembly in the elaboration of new norms and standards and their subsequent integration into existing international human rights law,

1. Decides to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group to elaborate new concepts, such as sexual orientation, and others which may emerge in this regard, defining such concepts and their scope and parameters in international human rights law prior to their integration into existing norms and standards of international human rights law;

2. Also decides that the above-mentioned working group shall be the single modality and framework of the Human Rights Council within which all the deliberations on sexual orientation, including other initiatives and action, shall be undertaken;

3. Further decides that the working group shall meet in sessions of ten working days annually and that the inaugural session of the working group shall be held prior to the nineteenth session of the Council;

4. Decides to remain seized of this priority issue.