The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold its forty-ninth regular session from 28 February to 1 April 2022 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, starting with a high-level segment from 28 February to 2 March, when dignitaries representing more than 130 Member States will address the Council.
The session will open at 9 a.m. on Monday, 28 February under the presidency of Federico Villegas (Argentina). The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres; the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Abdulla Shahid; the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet; as well as the Chief of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland, Ignazio Cassis, will deliver speeches at the opening. The Council will be meeting in room XIX of the Palais des Nations in hybrid format.
During the session, the Council will consider over 100 reports being presented by more than 30 human rights experts and groups. Around 50 country situations and 40 themes will be addressed by these presentations, including the human rights dimensions to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Council will also hold the annual high-level mainstreaming panel on the contribution of universal participation to the mainstreaming of human rights throughout the United Nations system; a meeting on technical cooperation in protecting the human rights of vulnerable persons in and after the COVID-19 pandemic; the annual discussion on the rights of the child on the theme of the rights of the child and family reunification; a panel discussion on access to COVID-19 vaccines; the annual debate on the rights of persons with disabilities with a focus on statistics and data collection under article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; a panel on public policies on COVID-19; and a debate on racial discrimination with the theme “voices for action against racism”.
The final outcomes of the Universal Periodic Review of 13 States will also be considered, namely those of Greece, Suriname, Samoa, Hungary, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Papua New Guinea, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Eswatini, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand and Ireland.
A detailed agenda and further information on the forty-ninth session can be found on the session’s webpage