Report of the 29th Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the human rights implications of the crisis in Myanmar

UNIVERSAL RIGHTS GROUP
February 15, 2021 

International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes, URG Human Rights Council Reports

 

On Friday 12th February 2021, the Human Rights Council convened a special session to address ‘the human rights implications of the crisis in Myanmar’.

The special session was requested via an official letter dated 8 February 2021 and signed by H.E. Mr. Julian Braithwaite, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the United Nations in Geneva. This letter, addressed to H.E. Ms. Nazhat Shameem Khan, the recently elected President of the Human Rights Council, was jointly submitted by the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom and the Permanent Delegation of the European Union. This request was officially supported by 19 member States and 28 Observer States.

29th Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the human rights implications of the crisis in Myanmar

Joint Statement by Tom Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
and the Coordination Committee

Geneva, 12 February 2021

Madam President, Distinguished members of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

I’m delivering this statement on behalf of my mandate and on behalf of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures. In light of the subject matter of the session today, the Committee has asked me to deliver our joint statement.  

We thank you for convening this Special – and very timely - session.

Introduction: The Need for Action

The very act of convening this session makes an important statement of the gravity with which this Council views what can aptly be described as an outrageous and illegal act – a coup d’état of a duly elected government and its duly elected leaders.

This is the 29th time that a Special Session of the Human Rights Council has convened. It is noteworthy, that the 27th Special Session was also convened to focus on illegal actions taken by the Myanmar military against its own people––in that case, the mass atrocity crimes that were committed against the Rohingya ethnic minority.