From A/61/443/Add.2 (Report of the Third Committee on the Promotion and protection of human rights: human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms)

December 7, 2006

		Composition of the staff of the Office of the United Nations 
High Commissioner for Human Rights


	The General Assembly,
	Recalling paragraph 5 (g) of its resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006, in which it decided that the Human Rights Council should assume the role and responsibilities of the Commission on Human Rights relating to the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as decided by the General Assembly in its resolution 48/141 of 20 December 1993,
	Taking note of all relevant resolutions on this issue adopted by the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights, 
	Taking note of the relevant reports of the High Commissioner and the Joint Inspection Unit,
	Bearing in mind that the imbalance in the actual composition of the staff could result in diminishing the effectiveness of the work of the Office if it is perceived to be culturally biased and unrepresentative of the United Nations as a whole,
	Regretting that efforts to address the imbalance regarding the regional geographic diversity of the staff have not resulted in a significant improvement, and noting the low representation from the United Nations regional groups of African, Asian, Eastern European, and Latin American and Caribbean States in the staff of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
	Reaffirming that the Fifth Committee is the appropriate Main Committee of the General Assembly entrusted with responsibilities for administrative and budgetary matters,
	1.	Decides, while considering the report of the Joint Inspection Unit:_Ref153890002 \h  \* MERGEFORMAT 2
	(a)	To provide concrete support and guidance to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in her ongoing efforts to overcome the status quo;
	(b)	To allow, in the effort to redress the specific geographic imbalance of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the establishment of a temporary mechanism whereby recruitment of staff in the Office at the P-2 level would not be restricted to successful candidates from the national competitive examination;
	(c)	To re-evaluate the financing of human rights activities, as noted in the report of the Joint Inspection Unit, with a view to increasing the support from core resources;
	2.	Encourages participation from a broader range of Member States in the associate experts programme and, in this respect, urges participants to increase sponsorship of associate experts from developing countries;
	3.	Requests the Joint Inspection Unit to assist the Human Rights Council to monitor systematically the implementation of the present resolution, inter alia, by submitting in May 2009 to the Human Rights Council a follow-up comprehensive report on the implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the Joint Inspection Unit pending their fulfilment;
	4.	Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:
	(a)	To take further measures for the full and effective implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the Joint Inspection Unit; 
	(b)	To submit a comprehensive and updated report on the basis of paragraph 26 (e) of Commission on Human Rights resolution 2005/72 to the Human Rights Council at its fourth session and to the General Assembly at its sixty-third session;
	5.	Requests the President of the sixty-first session of the General Assembly to bring, as soon as possible, the content of these recommendations to the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly for its consideration.

	 	E/CN.4/2006/103.
	 	JIU/REP/2006/3.