22 May 2008
UN Human Rights Council: UK re-elected, Sri Lanka defeated

The UN General Assembly voted from a pool of 19 candidates to elect 15 members to the UN Human Rights Council. Britain pipped Spain by one vote to win a seat as one of two representatives of the 'Western European and other states' group, the other being France.

Commenting on the UK's re-election, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said, 'The UK's election to the Human Rights Council is great news. This underscores the UK's commitment to the highest standards of human rights both at home and around the world. The UN plays a vital role in the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide,and the Human Rights Council has a key responsibility to support that role. The UK stood for election because we want to continue to build the Council into the strong and effective body it needs to be'.

Sri Lanka also stood. Its candidacy had attracted widespread criticism from NGOs, which castigated the recent deterioration in the country's human rights record. Steve Crawshaw of Human Rights Watch said that Sri Lanka's defeat was significant because it could make 'authoritarian regimes... much more wary of putting themselves forward'.

The four Asian seats went to Japan, Bahrain, South Korea and Pakistan.

To read more about UNA-UK's work on human rights, please click here.