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OHCHR to stay here another year
KATHMANDU, JUN 06 -
The government on Sunday decided to extend the term of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for another year with a revised mandate.
The current term of the UN body expires on June 9.
A Cabinet meeting also decided to ask OHCHR to “gradually” shut down its four regional offices, according to Information and Communications Minister Shankar Pokharel. However, no time line was set for the same.
The meeting held in haste decided to extend the term and mandate of the UN body after OHCHR Chief Richard Bennett piled up pressure on the establishment immediately after he returned from Geneva where negotiations with the UN body are on.
According to a minister,
OHCHR has been allowed to work here with a revised mandate and will assist the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Nepal’s envoy to the UN’s permanent mission in Geneva, Dinesh Bhattarai, and a senior official of the UN Human Rights Council will sign an agreement to this effect in Geneva before the OHCHR mandate expires. Foreign ministry officials said they were yet to receive the text of the agreement from Geneva as some issues remained to be finalised.
The government was under intense pressure from various quarters to extend the mandate of the OHCHR.
The UN body’s Geneva-based headquarters was seeking a two-year extension without a limited mandate.
“Either party can terminate the agreement unilaterally after six months,” Energy Minister Prakash Saran Mahat told the Post. “This (extension) is part of the exit plan for the UN body here,” he added.
“The mandate is limited with the only role of the OHCHR being to assist the NHRC,” Mahat said.
According to the Cabinet decision, the OHCHR will be barred from having direct access to archives of the parliament, courts and prisons.
“The (UN) body will work in collaboration with the NHRC to have access to the parliament, courts and prisons,” said another source.
This is the fifth time that the term of the UN rights body has been extended since its establishment in 2005.
Posted on: 2010-06-07 07:43
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