THIRD COMMITTEE SPECIAL RAPPORTEURS ON HUMAN RIGHTS

1. SUMMARY: As part of the annual discussion of human rights issues
in the UN General Assembly, numerous Special Rapporteurs on thematic
issues made presentations to the UNGA Third Committee. Below are
summaries of the hour-long presentations by the Special Rapporteurs
for Right to Health, Right to Food, Housing, VAW, TIP, Migrants, and
Right to Education. The summaries for presentations for Special
Rapporteurs on Torture, Myanmar, DPRK, Palestine, Freedom of
Religion, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights while Countering
Terrorism, and Extrajudicial Executions are reported Septel. END
SUMMARY.

RIGHT TO HEALTH


--------------------------





2. Anand Grover, Special Rapporteur on Physical and Mental Health,
said on October 21 that guaranteeing informed consent is fundamental
to achieving the enjoyment of the right to health through practices,
policies and research that are respectful of autonomy,
self-determination and human dignity. He said that structural
inequalities exacerbated by stigma and discrimination mean that
individuals from certain groups are disproportionately vulnerable to
having their informed consent compromised.

RIGHT TO FOOD


--------------------------





3. Olivier de Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food,
noted on October 21 that there were a billion hungry people in the
world, even though more food was being produced. He said the single
most important thing he had achieved in his mandate was his work
with the Food and Agriculture Organization to reform the Committee
on World Food Security, which created a global strategic framework
that would hold states accountable on their achievement of the right
to food. The full report is at: www.un.org.



4. Responding to Olivier de Schutter, the delegate of Argentina said
that extortionist policies from the world's leading producer
countries had led to tariff distortions, thus, fuelling food
insecurity. He asked about the relationship between the
protectionist trade policies and the right to food. Mr. De Schutter
said it was not acceptable for the market to be distorted by limited
access and subsidies.

HOUSING


--------------------------





5. Raquel Rolnik, Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, said on
October 23 that people of the lowest incomes tended to be located in
the most hazard-prone sites in cities. She noted that disasters
caused by extreme weather reflected a failure of urban planning.
She stated that access to affordable and well-located housing was
needed to avoid unplanned settlement expansions and housing for the
poor should be placed at the center of urban planning. The full
report is at: www.un.org.

VAW
---


6. Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women,
explained on October 23 that the 2009 thematic report to the HRC
attempted to demonstrate how power operated not only through
coercion, but also through the structure that governed the
distribution and use of resources, benefits, privileges and
authority within the home and society at large. She said the report
focused on the feminist critique of the dichotomy drawn between
political and civil rights and economic and social rights. She said
she also looked at the link between violence against women and
women's access to economic and social rights. The full report is
at: www.ohchr.org



7. Responding to Ms. Manjoo, the delegate of Syria called attention
to the situation of women in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
and asked for her opinion on the serious violations by Israel
against women in Gaza, including the occupied Syrian Golan. Ms.
Manjoo stated there was a continuum of violence there, where
oppression that resulted from patriarchy was feeding into the
occupation. She said follow-up work was needed to study violence
before, during and after conflict, and to discover what the impacts
of continued occupation were on women and children.

TIP
---



8. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons,
urged Member States on October 23 to fight the surreptitious
transnational crime in a spirit of cooperation and with a human
rights perspective. She proposed a global action plan with
quantifiable time-bound targets to galvanize the political and
economic will of Members States. She said such a plan should
facilitate sustained technical assistance for identifying and

protecting victims and should link anti-trafficking initiatives to
the MDGs to address the root causes of human trafficking. The full
report is at: www.un.org.



9. In responding to the Special Rapporteur, the delegate of Egypt
noted that the number of states that had not ratified the Palermo
Protocol was over 60. The delegate further noted that if the world
community was not going to come together now, then the whole
international effort was going to be a "big fat failure."

MIGRANTS


--------------------------





10. Jorge Bustamante, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of
migrants, said on October 26 that over the course of his mandate he
had visited Mexico, Guatemala, Romania and the United Kingdom. He
commented that during the period between January 2008 and June 2009,
he had received communications regarding allegations of arbitrary
detention, repatriation to countries of origin where there was
threat of torture, threats to life and security, and summary
executions. He said most countries had two major protection gaps:
1) lack of specific provisions on children in most migration laws;
and 2) the need to take into account the specific conditions and
needs of migrant children in public polices in general. He found
this year had been particularly alarming with regard to migrant
rights, with outbreaks of hostility and xenophobia against the
backdrop of the economic slowdown. The full report is at:
www.un.org.

EDUCATION


--------------------------





11. The Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Vernor Munoz
Villalobos, stressed on October 27 that preventing a person from
learning was paramount to denying them life. He said the
educational systems that were structured purely by a "utilitarian
paradigm" could strengthen prejudice and marginalization. He added
that states needed to interpret the concept of education broadly and
promote a lifestyle of learning, which was the only way to lead to
respect and understanding between people. The full report is at:
www.un.org.

Rice