The Human Rights Council this morning opened its forty-sixth regular session, hearing from Nazhat Shameem Khan, President of the Council; Volkan Bozkir, President of the General Assembly; António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General; Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; and Ignazio Cassis, host country representative and Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in Switzerland.
Opening the session, Nazhat Shameem Khan, President of the Human Rights Council, welcomed all the participants and highlighted that this was the first almost entirely online session of the Council.
Volkan Bozkir, President of the General Assembly, noted that the COVID pandemic was not just a health crisis, but a human rights crisis, and therefore all responses must ensure that human rights were central, for instance ensuring the equal access to all for vaccines.
António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, said that a year ago, he had launched at the Council a Call to Action for Human Rights. COVID-19 had deepened pre-existing divides, and opened up new fractures, including fault-lines in human rights. Just 10 countries had administered 75 per cent of all COVID-19 vaccines and over 130 countries had not received a single dose. Vaccine equity was ultimately about human rights.
Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that the pandemic had ripped the mask off the deadly realities of discrimination and that today the medical impact of the pandemic was far from over, while its effects on economies, freedoms, societies, and people had only just begun.