2/L.16 Composition of the staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

UNITED NATIONS

A

General Assembly Distr. LIMITED

A/HRC/2/L.16 3 October 2006

Original: ENGLISH

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Second session Agenda item 2

IMPLEMENTATION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 60/251 OF 15 MARCH 2006 ENTITLED “HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL”

Cuba: Draft decision

2006/… Composition of the staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Human Rights Council, recalling paragraph 5 (g) of General Assembly resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006 in which the Assembly decided that the Council should assume the role and responsibilities of the Commission on Human Rights relating to the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as set out in Assembly resolution 48/141 of 20 December 1993, recalling also Commission resolutions 2004/73 of 21 April 2004 and 2005/72 of 20 April 2005, taking note of the report of the High Commissioner on this subject (E/CN.4/2006/103) and the report of the Joint Inspection Unit entitled “Follow-up to the management review of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights” (JIU/REP/2006/3), and bearing in mind that the unbalanced composition of the present staff could diminish the effectiveness of the work of the Office if it is perceived to be culturally biased and non-representative of the United Nations as a whole, decides:

(a) To express regret that efforts to address the imbalance in the regional geographic diversity of the staff have not resulted in significant improvement;

GE.06-14322 (E) 031006

(b) To recommend that the General Assembly, while considering the report of the Joint Inspection Unit:

(i) Provide concrete support and guidance to the High Commissioner in her ongoing efforts to overcome the status quo;

(ii) Consider, in the effort to redress the specific geographic imbalance of the Office of the High Commissioner, establishing a mechanism whereby recruitment of P-2 staff for the Office would not be restricted to successful National Competitive Examination candidates;

(iii) Re-evaluate the financing of human rights activities, as noted in the report of the Joint Inspection Unit, with a view to increasing the support from

core resources;

(c) Encourage participation from a broader range of Member States in the Associate Experts Programme and, in this respect, urges participants to increase sponsorship of Associate Experts from developing countries;

(d) Request the Joint Inspection Unit to assist the Council in monitoring systematically the implementation of the present decision, inter alia by submitting in May 2008 to the Council a follow-up comprehensive report on the implementation of the recommendations in its report pending their fulfilment;

(e) Requests the High Commissioner for Human Rights:

(i) To take further measures for the full and effective implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Joint Inspection Unit;

(ii) To submit a comprehensive and updated report on the basis of paragraph 26 (e) of Commission on Human Rights resolution 2005/72 to the Council at its fourth session.

-----