Human Rights Council
Chairperson(s): Human Rights Council
It is my distinct honor and privilege to welcome you all to the United Nations Human Rights Council of the 2010 Houston Area Model United Nations Conference. As your chair for this committee, I am looking forward to a great conference in February.
I’m a freshman at Rice University, and I will likely major in Economics and Policy Studies. I attended St. John’s School for high school and participated in Model UN my junior and senior years. I, during my junior year was a delegate representing the Philippines on GA 3: Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural. This past year, my senior year, I was a member of the Human Rights Council last year and loved it. Anyway, that is enough about me; let's get back to the committee. Some of you all may be asking, what is the Human Rights Council (HRC)?
The HRC is an inter-governmental body with the UN system responsible to strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe. The council was created by the General Assembly in 2006 with the purpose of addressing serious human rights violations. I feel this group is provides a great forum for you all to engage in thought provoking, interesting, and important discussion. So, what are this year's topics for HRC?
This year, I have tried to pick two fascinating, if not clichéd and trite, topics: The Use of Torture as an Instrument of National Security Policy, and State Sanctioned Limitations of Basic Human Rights. I think both topics will provide a great springboard for discussion and analysis by you all. The first topic will force you to consider the eternal question: can governments use any means necessary to extract information paramount to national security from people? The second issue will ask you to familiarize yourselves with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (any right listed there will be considered “basic” for our discussion) and articulate how countries are violating certain parts of the document.
I hope you enjoy reading the background material on both topics and through the course of your research, discover interesting ways to approach each topic. Please feel free to email me with any questions or concerns at all. I can’t wait to meet you all in September at the DRW and, of course, in February at the conference!
Sincerely,
Neeraj Salhotra
Chair, UN Human Rights Council Committee
hrc@hamun.org
Houston Model United Nations 2009-2010
Helpful Websites for Reasearching:
United Nations Human Rights Council:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/
Univeral Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
United Nations Charter
http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/
