[PDFlist] UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Cancels All Side Events Due to Coronavirus Epidemic

[Soloveni Vitoso]

Dear NGO Representatives,



The Secretariat of the Human Rights Council would like to refer to the announcement made yesterday afternoon by the President of the Human Rights Council on the Bureau's decision of 2 March 2020 to follow the recommendations made by the UNOG Director-General in her letter on the same day concerning the global COVID-19 situation and its implications for the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council.



In this regard, you are hereby informed that all side-events scheduled during the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council, will be cancelled as of 3 March 2020 until the end of the session.



Please also note that, due to the same reasons, persons who have been granted side-event accreditation and badges, will not be allowed to enter the Palais des Nations.



The Secretariat would like to thank you for your understanding and flexibility, and stays available for further information.



Best regards,



[Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights]


[https://intranet.ohchr.org/Signature/spacer.gif]


NGO support
Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
E-mail: hrcngo at ohchr.org<mailto:hrcngo at ohchr.org>
Tel: +41 22 917 92 20
Web: www.ohchr.org<http://www.ohchr.org/>
Mailing Address: 8-14 Avenue de la Paix, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Twitter: UNHumanRights<http://twitter.com/UNHumanRights>
Facebook: unitednationshumanrights<http://www.facebook.com/unitednationshumanrights>
Google+: unitednationshumanrights<http://www.google.com/+unitednationshumanrights>




.............................................................................





On a different matter, today, I received an urgent letter from the UNOG Director-General, Ms. Tatiana Valovaya, concerning the global COVID-19 situation and its implications for the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council. In her letter, the Director-General made reference to the measures recommended by the Secretary General to the Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women and suggested that the Bureau of the Human Rights Council adopt a similar approach.



The UNOG Director-General specified that this would entail cancelling all side events and encouraging representatives to refrain from travelling to Geneva for the rest of the session. She also suggested that those Special Procedures mandate holders who are not already in Geneva could be encouraged to participate in the session via video-conferencing.



Due to the current situation, I called the Bureau for an urgent meeting which ended just a few minutes ago. The Bureau discussed the letter of the UNOG Director-General and in the light of the urgency of the current situation, decided to follow her recommendations.



The minutes of today's Bureau meeting will be circulated to all delegations alongside the letter from the UNOG Director-General in the next few minutes. I would like to thank everybody for their understanding and their flexibility. These are circumstances that are beyond our control, but they force us to react and take measures of pre-caution.



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.pacificdisability.org/pipermail/pdflist_lists.pacificdisability.org/attachments/20200304/db64f474/attachment.html>