Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 3 November (BelTA) - Politicized approaches to human rights stand in the way of the well-coordinated work of the Human Rights Council, Deputy Permanent Representative of Belarus to the United Nations Irina Velichko said during the debate on the 2017 annual report of the Human Rights Council to the General Assembly, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Irina Velichko laid out Belarus’ approaches to the work of the HRC. The Belarusian diplomat called the Universal Period Review as an undisputed achievement of the Human Rights Council. It allows impartially assessing the human rights situation in all countries, without exception. The universal periodic review (UPR) is a unique process which involves a review of the human rights records of all 193 UN member states. The UPR provides the opportunity for each state to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfill their human rights obligations. Thanks to the UPR, there is an exchange of best practices in the field of human rights worldwide. Currently, there are no other similar universal mechanisms.

At the same time Irina Velichko stressed that the well-coordinated work of HRC is hampered by politicized approaches to the issue of human rights, which is manifested primarily in the adoption of country-specific resolutions. The Belarusian diplomat called on the Human Rights Council to optimize its agenda and abandon the practice of duplicating the decisions of the General Assembly and disseminating dividing resolutions, which leads to significant financial costs.

In conclusion, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Belarus urged the Human Rights Council to facilitate interaction of the states with all UN agencies for the sake of the joint work in the field of human rights and to encourage the adoption, by the example of Belarus, of comprehensive plans aimed at implementing the HRC UPR recommendations in all countries, without exception.