Annual Meeting

Since 1994, annual meetings of special rapporteurs/representatives, experts and chairpersons of working groups established by the Commission on Human Rights and assumed by the Human Rights Council have been organized as a follow-up to the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action underlined the importance of preserving and strengthening the system of special procedures and specified that the procedures and mechanisms should be enabled to harmonize and rationalize their work through periodic meetings (Part II, para. 95).

The annual meeting is also an opportunity for mandate holders to meet and exchange views with Member States , the Bureau of the Council, NGOs and representatives from the UN Secretariat, agencies, funds and programmes on issues such as follow-up to their country visits and recommendations. Pursuant to a recommendation made at the eleventh annual meeting, participants also hold a joint meeting with Chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies meeting in Geneva during the same period.

The 17th Annual Meeting of special procedures of the Human Rights Council will take place in Geneva from 28 June to 2 July 2010.

At the 15th Annual Meeting of special procedures Ms. Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, was elected as the Chair of the Annual Meeting and the new Chair of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures until June 2009. Mr. Olivier de Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, was elected as Rapporteur, and Mr. Cephas Lumina, Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt, Ms. Maria Magdalena Sepúlveda, Independent Expert on human rights and extreme poverty, and Ms. Gulnara Shahinian, Special Rapporteur on the contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, were also elected as members of the Coordination Committee. Ms. Gay McDougall, as former Coordination Committee Chair, continued to serve on the Coordination Committee in an ex officio capacity.

Annual Meetings:

- 16th annual meeting, from 29 June to 3 July 2009: Report in English

- 15th annual meeting, from 23 to 27 June 2008

- 14th annual meeting, from 18 to 22 June 2007

- 13th annual meeting, from 19 to 23 June 2006

- 12th annual meeting, from 21- 25 of June 2005

- 11th annual meeting, from 21- 25 of June 2004

- 10th annual meeting, from 23 - 27 June 2003