Opening Remarks  H.E. Mr Coly Seck, President of the Human Rights Council 

Geneva, 13 February 2019

Madame Michelle Bachelet, High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Mister Stavros Lambrinidis, EU Special Representative for Human Rights,
Mister Phil Lynch, Director of the International Service for Human Rights,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Friends, 

It is a great pleasure to address you this afternoon in my capacity as President of the Human Rights Council. I wish to thank Ambassador Stevens for inviting me to address you this afternoon.

I believe that all of us here in this room know that the Human Rights Council has made many achievements in the area of the promotion and protection of human right since its establishment 13 years ago. But the Council and the good work that it does is unfortunately not so well known beyond the walls of Room Twenty.

In fact, the large majority of people for whom we work, those who are “on the ground” as we say, may not be aware that the Council is regularly holding discussions on a wide range of human rights issues and taking steps to address human rights situations around the world.

This is why I have decided that one of the priorities for my Presidency this year is to increase awareness of and trust in the Human Rights Council.

For this reason, I am extremely pleased to see this very important initiative “Good Human Rights Stories” being launched in Geneva. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the European Union and the 13 participating countries for bringing it across the Atlantic from the margins of the General Assembly to the home of the Human Rights Council. This is a successful example of bridging the gap between New York and Geneva.

Over the past years, we have spent a great deal of time and energy looking critically at the Council, focusing mainly on its challenges and setbacks. While I strongly believe that this exercise is essential for our effort to strengthen the Council, sharing our Good Human Rights Stories, and especially those stemming from the work of the Council, is equally necessary. The world’s attention should be drawn to all of the good that the Human Rights Council is doing, and not only on the challenges it is facing.

I also applaud this initiative for its truly cross-regional nature. Every region of the world, in fact every country, has its own background. While human rights principles are universal, their implementation differ from region to region, and country to country. Thus, there is a variety of success stories to tell providing a wide range of good examples from which we all can learn. 

As I stated upon the occasion of my election as Council President, we, the members and observers of the Human Rights Council, must act with determination and imagination on behalf of the children, young people, women and men who look to us, who observe us and who place so much hope in the action of the Council.

This initiative of sharing our “Good Human Rights Stories” is one important way we can boost awareness of the Council and by extension its credibility. 

Thank you