Today marked the beginning of the 2004 session. After a long line at the credentials office, we finally entered the UN complex. It's a beautiful day in Geneva, but with rain in the forecast this evening.
The photo on the right is the credentials registration line at the Les Feullantines building.
The Sub-Commission today elected its officers, presented its opening speeches and adopted its agenda. This year's Chairman will be Mr. Soli Sorabjee, expert from India. The other vice chairs are Mrs. Lalaina Rakotoarisoa (Madagascar), Mrs. Iulia Motoc (Romania) and Mrs. Francoise Hampson (United Kingdom). The election of the Rapporteur was postponed until tomorrow when a few other members are scheduled to arrive.
Some early good news is that the Minnesota Advocates written submissions on the Sierra Leone and Peru Truth & Reconciliation Commissions are already available as official UN documents. They are documents E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/NGO/12 (Sierra Leone) and E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/NGO/13 (Peru). The text of both documents can also be seen at the speeches page of this site.
The new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, also spoke to the Sub-Commission, and opening speeches were also presented by the outgoing chair (Mrs. Warzazi), the incoming chair (Mr. Sorabjee), and the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (Mike Smith).
Today we also compiled a "welcome pak" of information from this website (background documents, lists of studies, lists of documents, abbreviations, document numbering system, speaking tips, and brief bios of the members) and distributed it to new members of the Sub-Commission and any of the existing members who were interested in receiving it. This seemed to be well received.
This afternoon the Working Group on the Administration of Justice held its first of two meetings. It will reconvene Wednesday afternoon.
It was also decided to convene the working group on transnational corporations during the 2004 session. The first meeting of this group will be this Thursday.
Also, most of the key UN reports are available already, both in paper copies and on the Internet, including Barbara Frey's progress study on the human rights impact of small arms and light weapons (E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/37 and Add.1)
The Sub-Commission will now meet Tuesday morning (July 29) in private session, with the executive bureau of its parent body, the Commission on Human Rights. Tomorrow afternoon the official substantive proceedings begin, with a session from 3 to 6 p.m. devoted to item 2, country situations. The timetable after that is not yet decided. There was some discussion today that item 3, the administration of justice, may be moved to the end of the session (after item 6), in order to permit sufficient time for the working group on administration of justice to produce their report before the full Sub-Commission takes up this agenda item. The Sub-Commission will decide tomorrow whether the order of these agenda items will be re-organized.