US Mission Geneva

We look forward to continuing to work with other nations and international partners to ensure justice systems are child-sensitive and that progress is demonstrated more readily in the countries where serious challenges exist to accessing justice.

National security is too often interpreted overly broadly and is used as a pretext to restrict protests which are essentially political in nature. In my own country, the demonstrations for racial equality led by Martin Luther King Jr. were wrongly restricted by security officials using such pretexts.

Actions which help move the parties toward peace remain the surest way to protect the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis alike.

We remain concerned regarding the general approach of placing environmental concerns in a human rights context and about addressing them in fora that do not have the necessary expertise. For related reasons, while we recognize the efforts of the independent expert and UN bodies in this area, we do not agree with a number of aspects of their work.

Our priority is to help ensure that all states live up to their obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and implement practical measures to fulfill the promise of that Convention and other instruments barring racial discrimination. Unfortunately, we are concerned that the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance does little to contribute to forward movement on such practical measures.

We are deeply concerned by the recent mob violence in Sittwe targeting UN offices and international NGOs, which has resulted in the destruction of property and the emergency relocation of international aid workers, including American citizens, to safe havens.

While there has been some welcome change in rhetoric from the Iranian government, there has been no significant improvement in Iran’s overall human rights situation.

With the passage of this resolution, the Human Rights Council continues to fulfill the important role of drawing global attention to the atrocities taking place in Syria and collecting the evidence necessary to ensure future accountability for these acts.

We do not believe that the examination of specific weapons systems is a task for which the Human Rights Council is well suited, and we do not support efforts to take this body in that direction, much less in a resolution that in many key respects does little more than to duplicate work that is ongoing both under the auspices of the Council and in other venues.