Calendars, Events & Newsletters

Calendar of the Human Rights Council

There are various tools published by the Secretariat that will help you planning your work with the Human Rights Council around the year and throughout sessions.

  • Yearly Calendar of the Human Rights Council: The calendar of sessions of the Human Rights Council gives an overview over the dates of all sessions of the Council and of its mechanisms. These include for instance the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the Social Forum, the Forum on Minority Issues or the Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Peoples' Rights. The calendar covers the period from 1st January to 31st December and is available on the Extranet (user name: hrc extranet, password: 1session) or here.
  • Annual Programme of Work of the Human Rights Council: An important tool for planning your year is the Annual Programme of Work. It is structured along the 10 items of the agenda. For each plenary session of the Council, the Annual Programme of Work takes up the 10 items and fills them with specific content. For example, it will state that during the March session, discussions under item 3 ("Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development"), will include the annual full day meeting on the rights of the child or the interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, whereas the indigenous peoples rights will be up for discussion during the September session. The Annual Programme of Work therefore helps you to find out which concrete topics will be discussed in which session. It is thus an essential tool to plan your work, including to decide to which sessions you are going to assist and on what topic you wish to focus your lobbying efforts on. The Annual Programme of Work is available on the Extranet (user name: hrc extranet, password: 1session) or here.
  • Annotated Agenda of plenary sessions of the Human Rights Council: The annotated agenda of a specific session is structured along the 10 items of the agenda. It contains specific information on what will be discussed under each item. In particular, it includes references to documents that form the basis for discussions, such as reports that will be considered during the session as well as references to past resolutions that are relevant for the discussion. The Annotated Agenda is available on the official website of the Council, by selecting the relevant session, and then on "Annotations to the Agenda" in your preferred language.

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Calendar of Side Events to Human Rights Council sessions

During plenary and UPR sessions of the Council, as well as sessions of other subsidiary bodies, smaller and informal meetings called "side events" or "informal meetings" are also held. The official calendar of side events is published on the website of the Council (select session, then "Bulletin of Informal Meetings" on the right) during plenary sessions only, and only two days before an event is held. In addition, the Secretariat publishes an advanced list of NGO side events to plenary as well as UPR sessions. It is put online a few days before the beginning of the session and is not updated anymore later on. This list is pubished on the Extranet (user name: hrc extranet, password: 1session). Once logged in, click
- for plenary sessions: on the relevant session, then on "NGO Liaison information page" on the left. There, you will find the list under "Provisional calendar of NGO side events".
- for UPR sessions: on "HRC Mechanisms and Subsidiary Organs" in the upper right corner, then on "Universal Periodic Review" (you may be asked to re-enter the same login date once again). Click on the relevant sessions, and you will find the "Provisional calendar of NGO side events" under the heading "Information meetings".

If you are organising a side event, you may always email or bring along a printed flyer of your side event to be displayed at the Welcome Desk. If you bring several copies (around twenty), we will be happy to give them to interested visitors. Learn more about how to organise a side event here.

Calendars of International Meetings in Geneva

Agenda International: find an event on a given topic during your stay in Geneva or announce your own event.

Meetings at the UN in Geneva: find conferences and other events taking place in the UN system in Geneva.

Geneva International Cooperation - Calendar: find event according to topics or organsiations.

Calendar of Human Rights meetings: find human rights related events in Geneva.

UN meetings around the world: find a calendar of major UN meetings in New York and elsewhere.

Newsletters and RSS Feeds

Newsletters

Center for Civil and Political Right (CCPR): receive the latest human rights news, State reports, NGOs' reports and other issues related to the Human Rights Council.

CIVICUS: This weekly publication delivers the latest developments of civil society organisations around the world and other factors pertaining to their field.

Gmedia Center: This newsletter offers articles written by various members of the organisation on a wide range of issues, information about grants and fellowships, workshops and seminars, as well as updates on events taking place in Geneva.

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD): gain access to several electronic and printed publications based on your region of interest and language of choice.

International Trade Centre (ITC): this alert sends summaries of the main articles in each new issue, with links to the articles on the site regarding mainly trade promotion and export development.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) - Civil Society Section. Choose from various topics concerning the Human Rights Council, its committees, procedures, treaty bodies and other ways of engagement.

Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): This is a quarterly newsletter informing about globalization, development and international trade and commodities, among others.

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE): topics in this newsletter include: economic integration, environmental policy, gender issues, and millenium development goals, to name a few.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) : free information on culture, shared values and dialogue, delivered to your inbox depending on your chosen reception frequency.

United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD): receive updates on key development issues, job vacancies, news & media, areas of research in civil society and social movements, democracy, governance and well-being.

UN news center: choose to receive your news by topic, from the End-of-Day Digest,or all news stories about the UN delivered straight to your desktop or in-box.

UPR-Info: stay up-to-date on the Universal Periodic Review process and the organization's activities.

World Health Organization (WHO): a monthly series that highlights environmental health on the global health agenda. Find convenient links, listings of upcoming events and recent publications.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): e-mail updates on activities, services, events, publications and discussion groups. Choose from various topics in the available languages and frequency of notifications.

World Trade Organization (WTO): interesting for journalists as this newsletter gives access to the media newsroom and e-mail notifications concerning embargoed press releases and other advance material upon subscription.

 

RSS Feeds

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO): subscribe to specific feeds to get the latest FAO news on various topics: agriculture, food security, world hunger and related issues; delivered to your preferred RSS reader.

International Labour Organization (ILO): retreive the latest ILO content from media and public information (includes RSS specific to Asia), to publications and updates for constituents.

International Telecommunications Union (ITU): keep up to date with news of the UPU and its activities: electronic and financial services, postal economics, technical cooperation, among others.

International Trade Centre (ITC): get the latest headlines on trade promotion and export development as soon as they are published.

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE): This page contains links to all RSS feeds on the UNECE web site. Subscribe to the RSS feeds of your choice.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO): RSS Feeds by programmes and areas of research including, but not limited to special events, social policy, civil society and social movements. This service is available in either English, French or Spanish.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): stay notified on the latest news articles on environment and development published on UNEP's website.

United Nations of International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF): obtain automatic updates from UNICEF's homepage and its Photo Essays' news feed. Headlines and summaries syndicated via RSS are accompanied by links to the full content.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): receive new content from your favourite sections of ReliefWeb. RSS feeds contain headlines, summaries and links to articles and maps on the website.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA): view data feeds from various news sources, such as inthenews.unfpa.org, including headlines, summaries and links to full articles on reproductive health, gender equality, population and development.

United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD): various links to individual RSS feeds from the UNRISD web site are available, categorized according to area of research, programmes, podcasts and publications, among others. Available in English, Spanish and French.

World Food Programme (WFP): get the the latest updates on global hunger crises delivered directly to your desk- or laptop.

World Health Organization (WHO): RSS feeds available include: general WHO news and speeches, emergencies and distasters, disease outbreaks, avian influenza, and maternal, newborn and child health news feeds.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): choose from the RSS feeds available on the WIPO website concerning industrial property statistics, recently published WIPO domain name case decisions, conferences and updates for PCT users, among many others.  

World Meteorological Organization (WMO): consists of the most recent news stories in summary form with links to the full articles related mainly to climate and water.

World Trade Organization (WTO): select the WTO website as a news source and receive information on trade agreements, policies and practices.