US Mission Geneva

The Human Rights Council made historic progress this session in advancing the rights of human rights defenders throughout the world. First and foremost, this council established the first-ever Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association that will provide a strong, independent and credible voice to highlight the growing threats to assembly, association and civil society, while developing best practices for the protections of those rights. Its creation addresses one of the United States’ top priorities at the council – to make it more effective in defending human rights on the ground throughout the world.

This resolution reinforces the role States play in taking appropriate measures to address the problem of discrimination against women and calls upon States to revoke laws that discriminate on the basis of sex. It stresses the need to promote equal pay for equal work or work of equal value, which the United States interprets as calling for non-discrimination in terms of remuneration.

The United States remains deeply concerned by the suffering of civilians in Gaza. We continue to believe the situation in Gaza is unsustainable and is not in the interest of any of those concerned. As we have pointed out in the past, mechanisms are in place for the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. These mechanisms should be the ones used for the benefit of all those in Gaza.

It would be difficult for me to completely and adequately express my great satisfaction at having just successfully accomplished establishment of a new mandate for freedom of association and assembly at the Human Rights Council. That is exactly the type of issue that the United States had committed to bring to the top of the Human Rights Council agenda, and as we just observed, we accomplished it with support of all delegations in the room, it was a consensus agreement.

When the mandate of the committee of experts was adopted in March, we made it clear that we did not support international oversight of domestic legal processes absent an indication that they are manifestly failing to deal seriously with alleged abuses.

The Human Rights Council created on September 30 the first-ever Special Rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association to provide the special attention these fundamental freedoms currently lack. Support for the resolution came from countries across the globe.

The United States applauds the United Nations Human Rights Council’s establishment today of the first-ever UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association. The United States co-sponsored the resolution creating this mechanism with a broad cross-regional group of 62 countries, including original co-sponsors the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Maldives, Mexico and Nigeria.

The United States shares the grave concerns raised regarding kidnapping for ransom by terrorists, abhors such actions, unequivocally condemns impunity for hostage-takers, and firmly supports efforts to end the practice of ransom payments since these payments directly support terrorists

The United States believes in the importance of a credible, impartial, and transparent investigation into the tragic events of May 31. We emphasized this last June, and we continue to hold this view. We have expressed our commitment to working with partners, including our longstanding friends Israel and Turkey, to ensure a full and appropriate response to the incident and the circumstances that led to it.