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High Commissioner for Human Rights welcomes
revised Review Conference draft
"We now have a good, solid basis for states to consider as we
enter the
final stretch leading up to the Review Conference," says High
Commissioner Navi Pillay
Photo credit: UNICEF/ Justin Leighto
The
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, on Wednesday
welcomed the release of a significantly shorter draft outcome document
for the Durban Review Conference, which is due to be held in April, and
said she hoped the introduction of this latest version of the draft
would be a “major turning point” in preparations for the conference.
"We
now have a good, solid basis for states to consider as we enter the
final stretch leading up to the Review Conference," Pillay said. "I
really hope that this marks the necessary breakthrough needed to
achieve consensus on a text that must offer concrete help to hundreds
of groups and millions of individuals who are subjected to racism and
other forms of intolerance all across the world. No continent, indeed
no individual country, is free of these dangerous phenomena, and it
would be inexcusable if states failed to reach consensus on such
important issues."
The latest draft text is a
much shorter, but still substantive, version of a text that has been
under discussion since January. It was produced by the Chair of the
working group established to negotiate a draft outcome document, Yuri
Boychenko of the Russian Federation, after consultations at the expert
level. Boychenko will continue to consult informally on this “rolling”
document during the coming weeks, leading up to a Preparatory Committee
meeting from 15-17 April, just before the Review Conference.
"Thanks
to those who have been working, and contributing with good will, to
produce this latest text – despite the sustained and sometimes
distorted criticisms that have dogged this Conference process – I
believe there should now be no major barrier to reaching a successful
outcome," Pillay said, after the release of the new version of the
draft outcome document on Tuesday. "I urge all states to refrain from
taking narrow politicized or polemical stances on particular issues,
and to work together for the remainder of the process towards a
successful outcome for the victims of racial discrimination and
intolerance around the world."
Full text can be found at the Durban Review
Conference website at: http://www.un.org/durbanreview2009/pdf/Rolling%20text%20YB,%2017-3-2009.pdf
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