The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) believes that this session is an opportunity to pursue the discussion around the creation of the review of mandates, i.e. the Special Procedures, and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). For the Special Procedures, FIDH believes that there should be an increased possibility to interact with the differents sessions of the Council, a nomination procedure which strengthens and guarantees against State interference, and that their mandate should be reinforced through an increased condemnation of States who refuse to cooperate with them. Concerning the Code of Conduct, this should not include methods of work, and it should ensure that the responsibilities of States are also highlighted in the Code, e.g. sanctions or removal from the Council should States continuously fail to cooperate with the Special Procedures. We all know that the cooperation with Special Procedures is crucial to ensure respect of human rights.
As for the UPR, as stated on numeros occasions, FIDH calls for States participating in these negociations to be guided by the objective of strengthening their mandate to protect from human rights violations. This means, in pratice, that the UPR should be action oriented, and performed on the basis of thorough reports from independent sources, including Special Procedures, Treaty Bodies and NGOs. The UPR should not be an isolated review, but should be interrelated to existing monitoring mechanisms and be based on implementing their recommendations. NGOs should be able to participate at all stages of the review. Independent experts should be involved at all stages of the Independent experts should be involved at all stages of the review, and a concrete actionoriented outcome should aim at improving the human rights situation of the country reviewed.
We have iterated these issues on several occasions and we hope that the delegations will take them into consideration at this session.