United Nations Special Procedures: Building on a cornerstone of human rights protection

Index Number: IOR 40/017/2005
Date Published: 30 September 2005

The decision taken at the United Nations (UN) World Summit in September 2005 to establish a new Human Rights Council to replace the Commission on Human Rights followed months of negotiations. Amnesty International believes that the creation of the Human Rights Council presents an important opportunity to fortify the Special Procedures system to enable it to support the principle human rights organ of the UN. In this document, Amnesty International makes a number of recommendations as to how this could be achieved.