United Nations special rapporteur

Christof Heyns, former special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions and Maina Kiai, former special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association (2015).
The meetings of the United Nations Human Rights Council take place in the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room of the Palace of Nations, Geneva.

Special rapporteur (or independent expert) is the title given to independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations (UN) to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.[1][2]

Depending on the specific mandate, there can also be working groups composed of an independent expert from each of the five UN regional groupings: Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and the Western group.[3] Their work falls within the scope of "special procedure" mechanisms under the United Nations Human Rights Council,[1] and their contributions can advance human rights through a variety of activities, including, but not limited to improving access to redress, policy reform, mainstreaming human rights, raising human rights awareness, and acting to prevent or cease rights violations.

The mandate by the United Nations has been to "examine, monitor, advise, and publicly report" on human rights problems through "activities undertaken by special procedures, including responding to individual complaints, psychological operations and manipulation via the controlled media and academia, conducting studies, providing advice on technical cooperation at the country level, and engaging in general promotional activities."[4]

  1. ^ a b "OHCHR | Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council". OHCHR. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
  2. ^ "Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council". ISHR. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
  3. ^ "UNSDG | UN Special Procedures". unsdg.un.org. Archived from the original on 2022-10-10. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
  4. ^ "Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council Archived 2020-09-26 at the Wayback Machine". Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. ohchr.org. Retrieved 2016-10-27.