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The Role of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: One Step Forward or Two Steps Back?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2017

Helena Cook*
Affiliation:
University of Essex, England

Abstract

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Type
Human Rights: Implementation through the UN System
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1995

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References

1 Report of the High Commissioner to the General Assembly, UN Doc. A/49/36, at para. 6.

2 For a detailed discussion and analysis of these early proposals and their fate, see Clark, A United Nations High Commissioner For Human Rights (1972).

3 U.N. Action in the Field of Human Rights, UN Doc. ST/HR/2/Rev.4 (1994), at paras. 593-608.

4 Amnesty International, e.g., took up the creation of a High Commissioner for Human Rights as its main objective for the World Conference, and published a paper placing this long-standing proposal in the contemporary context of the current international system for the protection of human rights, with all its failings and weaknesses. See Amnesty International, Facing Up To The Failures: Proposals For Improving The Protection OF Human Rights By The United Nations (Al Index: IOR 41/16/92).

5 For a more detailed discussion of the adoption of the resolution, see Clapham, , Creating the High Commissioner for Human Rights: The Outside Story , 5 E. J. Int’l. L. 556568 (1994)Google Scholar.

6 UN Doc. A/49/36 of 11 November 1994.

7 UN Doc. E/CN.4/1995/98 of 15 February 1995.

8 First UN Commissioner for Rights Proves Low Key, WASH. POST, December 27, 1994.

9 U.N. Human Rights Chief Won’t Be Neutral, Int’l Her. Tri. March 14, 1994.

10 The countries so far visited are Austria, Bhutan, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Malawi, Nepal, Norway, Rwanda, Sweden and Switzerland.

11 Statement by the High Commissioner at a seminar on Public Awareness and Technical Cooperation in the Field of Human Rights, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, 26-28 October 1994.

12 See the address of the High Commissioner to the 1994 meeting of rapporteurs, experts and Working Groups, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1995/5/Add.l (1995).

13 Id.