This summary has been prepared by Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. During the Sub-Commission these daily summaries will also appear at www.ProjectEleanor.com/2005/daily. Today marked the beginning of the 2005 session. Vladimir Kartashkin (shown at right) was elected Chairperson. It is believed he is the first Russian ever to hold this post in the 58 year history of the Sub-Commission! Mr. Kartashkin is a well respected and long time member of the Sub-Commission. We congratulate him and the rest of the members of the Bureau on their elections today.
The other members of the new Bureau are vice chairs Mr. Ibrahim Salama (Egypt), Ms. Florizelle O'Connor (Jamaica) and Mr. Marc Bossuyt (Belgium), and Rapporteur Mr. Yozo Yokota (Japan).
The topics of UN reform and Sub-Commission reform were raised in several contexts today and will undoubtedly overlay much of the Sub-Commission's work this session. Both Mrs. Louise Arbour (High Commissioner for Human Rights) in her welcoming speech and Mr. Kartashkin in his opening remarks, raised it and talked about the importance of the Sub-Commission. Mrs. Francoise Hampson (expert from the United Kingdom) presented her paper on reform ideas for item 2 of the Sub-Commission's agenda (country situations). Several members also requested that time be set aside during the session's agenda to discuss the implications of reform on the future of the Sub-Commission.
The Bureau met in closed session after today's opening meeting, in order to establish the plan of work (timetable) for the upcoming session. It is presumed that an interactive dialogue will occur on Mrs. Hampson's paper Tuesday afternoon, and that one or more segments will be scheduled for discussions on UN reform.
This afternoon the Working Group on the Administration of Justice held its first of two meetings. It discussed papers on international humanitarian law and effective legal remedies, as well as the general topic of women and criminal justice. The working group will reconvene Friday afternoon for its second meeting.
It was also decided to convene the working group on transnational corporations during the 2005 session. The first meeting of this group will probably be this Wednesday.
A third working group, on counter terrorism, will also be convened sometime during the three-week session.
The Sub-Commission will now meet Tuesday morning (July 26) in private session, with the expanded 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 1 (organisation of work) and item 2 (country situations). It is hoped that several NGOs and experts have planned new approaches to their item 2 interventions, in line with the discussions last year under this agenda item, and to further support the reform initiatives suggested in Mrs. Hampson's paper on this subject. The timetable for the remainder of the session will be announced in Tuesday afternoon's session.
Some important NGO events coming up include:
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