Adobe>
25 April 2023
The United Nations (UN) Committee on Enforced Disappearances completed the first draft of its very first General Comment (GC) – now out for consultation – on enforced disappearances in the context of migration.
The Geneva Human Rights Platform, supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, facilitated the drafting process by organizing a complementary informal one-week retreat for the Committee and additional background research support.
Barbara Lochbihler and Milica Kolakovic-Bojovic, Vice-Chairs of the Committee and Co-Rapporteurs of this GC are expecting the draft to go for adoption in the next session of the Committee, to be held in September this year.
‘The many substantive comments received during the first round of consultations on the concept note allowed us to incorporate the views of many states and other stakeholders into the current draft, and we look forward to further comments and engagement with stakeholders in the lead-up to our September session’ says Milica Kolakovic-Bojovic.
‘The most important work will start then, when we will take the document from Geneva to the regions, communicating its meaning, importance and potential use. It is at the national level where this document will become most meaningful, and of course in the constructive dialogues, when it will guide the Committee in its questions and recommendations’ underlines Barbara Lochbihler.
‘We are now working with the Committee and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights towards the dissemination of this new General Comment and will soon publish a short research brief outlining how General Comments, and this one in particular, can help to make a change on the ground’ explains Felix Kirchmeier, Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform.
Geneva Academy
Our recent Academy Briefing, 'The Human Rights Data Revolution', has garnered significant international recognition in recent months with presentations in Indonesia, Paraguay and at the United Nations in New York.
Our podcast In and Around War(s) returns for a third season.
Geneva Academy
This public event, addressing the international community in and outside Geneva will highlight and discuss current issues and challenges in the work of Geneva-based actors, as they relate to human rights.
Adobe
This one-hour side-event to the 57th session of the Human Rights Council aims to showcase the transformative potential of digital technologies in advancing human rights and SDG monitoring.
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
This training course will explore the origin and evolution of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and its functioning in Geneva and will focus on the nature of implementation of the UPR recommendations at the national level.
Adobe
This research will provide legal expertise to a variety of stakeholders on the implementation of the right to food, and on the right to food as a legal basis for just transformation toward sustainable food systems in Europe. It will also identify lessons learned from the 2023 recognition of the right to food in the Constitution of the Canton of Geneva.
Victoria Pickering
This project aims at providing support to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association Clément Voulé by addressing emerging issues affecting civic space and eveloping tools and materials allowing various stakeholders to promote and defend civic space.
Geneva Academy