Minutes of the Human Rights Council Bureau
31 January 2017
On 31 January 2017, the Bureau held a meeting to discuss: (1) Preparations for the 34th session of the Council; (2) Letter of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of 25 January 2017 (3) Follow-up to the discussions on the letter from UNOG Director-General and Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management of 21 December 2016; and (4) AOB.
Preparations for the 34th session of the Council
a. Programme of work: The President indicated that the programme of work for the upcoming 34th session of the Council was already made available on the Extranet following its initial review by the 2016 Bureau. The secretariat presented the draft programme of work, highlighting some key elements of the heavy schedule: the high-level segment to which 66 delegations inscribed so far, the on-going preparations for ten panel discussions for which concept notes will be made available on the Extranet shortly, and the interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner for Human Rights which is to take place on 9 March, while the High Commissioner will present his annual report the day before (8 March). The secretariat also highlighted that there is no space for spill-over during this session. The Bureau acknowledged the importance of being firm on enforcing time limits for all statements, and emphasized the importance of keeping the statements of dignitaries to seven minutes.
b. Documentation: The secretariat informed the Bureau on the status of the preparation of documentation, indicating that 40 percent of all documentation had already been made available in all official United Nations languages, which was slightly more than at the same time before the previous session. 
c. Appointment of Special Procedures mandate holders: The President informed the Bureau that he received and circulated on 31 January the report of the Consultative Group on the 7 vacancies of mandate holders to be appointed at the 34th session, and that he would start his consultations in accordance with paragraph 52 of the annex to Human Rights Council resolution 5/1.
Letter from the High Commissioner for Human Rights of 25 January 2017
The President recalled that on 25 January, he received a letter from the High Commissioner concerning his report to the Council under resolution 31/36 entitled “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan”, which requests the High Commissioner, in close consultation with the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, in follow-up to the report of the independent international fact finding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil,  political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, to produce a database of all business enterprises involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 of the  aforementioned report, to be  updated annually, and to transmit the data therein in the form of a report to the Council at its thirty-fourth session. 
In his letter, the High Commissioner recommends that the Council defers for one time only its consideration of his report to allow for the submission of the report as soon as possible but no later than the end of December 2017. This request was based on the need for more time to carefully consider the inputs submitted in relation to the open call for submissions, and to ensure that due process with respect to the concerned stakeholders is fully respected prior to the compilation and transmission of the aforementioned database in a report to the Council. 
The Bureau acknowledged the importance of the High Commissioner and his Office being afforded additional time in order to deploy every possible effort to complete the report. While noting that the submission should be no later than the end of December 2017, the Bureau agreed to bring the matter before the Council at its organizational meeting of 13 February, with the purpose of taking a decision on the High Commissioner’s request. 
Follow-up to the discussions on the letter from UNOG Director-General and Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management of 21 December 2016
The Bureau continued its discussion on the implications of the letter from UNOG Director-General Michael Møller and Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management Catherine Pollard of 21 December 2016, concerning the workload of the Council. The Bureau emphasized the need for clarity of information and numbers. The President invited the secretariat to further elaborate on the technical aspects of the letter. The secretariat explained that the calculations of the number of meetings were provided by the UNOG Division of Conference Management, and informed the Bureau that it has requested from the Division further explanation of those calculations.
The Bureau agreed to continue to discuss concrete ideas on how to alleviate the heavy annual programme of work, and to remain fully seized of the matter. 
AOB
a. Task Force on Accessibility: The President recalled that as part of the implementation of the review of the Council, the Bureau takes the lead of the Task Force established pursuant to Council resolution 16/21, and invited the members of the Bureau to volunteer to serve as Chair of this Task Force. 
b. Inter-sessional seminar on the protection of the family: The President recalled that the inter-sessional seminar on the protection of the family will take place on Thursday 23 February 2017, pursuant to Council resolution 32/23. The secretariat recalled that the agenda and concept note of this had been circulated to all delegations on 30 January
c. Note verbale from the Philippines to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of 30 January 2017: One member of the Bureau indicated that his respective permanent mission had received a note verbale from the Permanent Mission of the Philippines, requesting the deferment of the consideration of the Philippines under the Universal Periodic Review process ‘to 2018 onwards’, citing ‘administrative considerations’ which the new administration is facing as the reason for this request. The secretariat informed the Bureau that the Office of the High Commissioner had received a similar note. The President informed that he would be meeting with the Chargé d’Affaires of the Philippines the following day to discuss this issue, per her request. The Bureau reaffirmed its commitment to the Universal Periodic Review mechanism and stressed the importance of universality and the equal treatment of all States under the mechanism. The Bureau agreed that the elements presented in the note verbale were not of the nature to allow for a deferral and that the Philippines should be provided with information about the possible alternative solutions while continuing to maintain the established order of the review.   
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