• the sub-commission on human rights;
• the 1503 procedure; and
• the mandates of the Special Rapporteurs and working groups.

To date the council has held three regular sessions and will be meeting for their fourth session in March-April 2007. So far they have managed to avoid many of the conflicts that made the commission inefficient, but they are still in the process of determining procedure and have yet to take on any major decisions in their regular sessions. A working group has been created to come up with methods and procedures which will hopefully clarify some of the initial confusion of council members, states and civil society in the first meetings. Until these procedures are finalised, the Council has continued the Commission’s practice of valuing the participation of civil society. What the final procedures are will determine the extent of input and participation NGOs may have at the Council.

The Council will hold regular sessions at least three times a year, in contrast to the Commissions one. While it is hoped that this will allow more issues to be dealt with, it also means that many NGOs from the global south will be excluded from meaningful participation as they do not have the time or financial resources to maintain a presence in Geneva. On the positive side however, the sessions are now webcast which not only gives greater transparency, but also allows NGOs to monitor each session.

Special procedures
The Council has extended all special procedures mandates for one year at which point they will review the findings of the working group and decide the fate of each mandate individually. This is a critical area for civil society and APWLD, as the special procedures are often the most accessible and direct path for NGOs as APWLD has utilised over the last 10 years. Unfortunately the special procedures have been highly controversial for many states, and there has been resistance to renewing their mandates – particularly the ‘country mandates’. There have been increasing attacks against mandate holders individually and collectively that have aimed to terminate key mandates, limit their independence and working methods. For example, at the second session of the Council many country specific mandates and the UNSR on Human Rights Defenders (Hina Jilani), met with great opposition, including personal attacks on the mandate holders. As well as terminating key mandates and limiting their independence and working methods, proposal have been put forward by some states during this review period that the admissibility criteria for individual communications with mandate holders should be limited to cases where domestic remedies have been exhausted (limiting its accessibility to that of the treaty bodies).

It is important that civil society continue to support the various mandates and the strengthening of the special procedures by encouraging national governments and the HR Council of their importance.

Universal Periodic Review
The council will also be responsible for the new universal peer review, which will replace the more ad hoc review of the commission. When it is created UPR may be a valuable tool in that all states will be subject to the same review, regardless of history or political power. However, it has yet to be decided how and in what depth these reviews will be held and what role civil society will play in them.

2. Streamlining – UN Gender Architecture Reforms

On 9 November 2006, the ‘UN High Level Panel on System Wide Coherence’ delivered its report ‘Delivering as One’. It focuses on structural change within the UN to reduce inefficiency and overlap between agencies. One of its recommendations is to create ‘One UN’ at the country level. This would merge all agencies in a particular country into one institution under a resident coordinator, which would then work together to best suit the needs of the particular country.

Importantly, it also recommends consolidating the three existing gender institutions (Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary –General on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women (OSAGI), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) and UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)) into one body. This new body would be headed by an Under-Secretary General and would be “fully and ambitiously funded”. The new body would also fall under part of the relevant ‘One UN’ programmes. The dual mandate of the new entity, which will include both policy and country-level functions, will strengthen the effectiveness of the gender mainstreaming work of other UN agencies, as well as advance women’s rights directly. The recommendations also include a recommendation for an open, transparent and global search for a candidate who has substantive expertise in gender equality. These recommendations are in line with what women’s groups (including APWLD) have been calling for to enable governments and the UN system to better achieve their goals on gender equality, women’s empowerment and human rights.

Former UN SG Kofi Annan’s attempt to ‘fast track’ this programme and appoint a USG as head of the new women’s agency by the end of 2006, met with strong opposition, and it will be reviewed along with the rest of the report by the GA early this year (2007). It is now up to the new UN Secretary General and member states to ensure that UN takes strong steps to meet the Panel’s recommendations.

Next Steps
On the reforms at the HR Council it will be important for women’s NGOs to monitor and have an input into the review process this year to ensure the continuation and strengthening of the work of the Special Procedures, the mainstreaming of gender within the Universal Periodic Review process and that the participation of NGOs in the Council remains at the levels currently allowed in CHR processes.

The gender architecture reforms could be very positive steps for women and civil society, but only if they are done with the full funding and gender outlook suggested in the recommendations put forward by women’s groups. For example, women’s groups are calling for every UN Country Team to include senior-level gender equality experts with adequate resources and support who can lead the team’s efforts to fulfill and promote UN and government commitments to women’s human rights. The issue now is implementation of the recommendations of the panel and women’s groups and ensuring that key issues and voices are not lost in the momentum towards ‘efficiency’. This will require strong lobbying of governments and the new UN Secretary General by civil society.