Latvia's Minister of Foreign Affairs to participate in the UN Human Rights Committee session in Geneva [11 Mar 2005]

On 14 and 15 March 2005, Latvia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Artis Pabriks, is participating in the annual session of the UN Human Rights Committee, which is 61st in turn and will last for six weeks.

As part of the session, on 14 March Minister Pabriks is meeting with the Canadian Foreign Minister, Pierre Pettrigrew, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, and Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, Wendy Chamberlin.

On 15 March, the Minister is scheduled to address the Committee's plenary session to voice Latvia's position on issues related to the Committee's reform and on the enhancement of work of the monitoring committees for UN conventions. Mr Pabriks plans to maintain that the number of member states in the Committee must be limited, unless the Committee's status in the entire UN system where it is only one of six UN Economic and Social Council's functional commissions is reviewed. The Minister will also speak about the need to improve the Economic and Social Council's working methods.

The Committee is the central UN forum on human rights. Only 53 countries of the Committee have voting rights. Latvia was its member state from 1999 to 2001 and is now standing for election for the years 2006 to 2008.

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