Today's Date:

Establishment of the Human Rights Council

President Eliasson,

United Nations action to promote human rights is irreplaceable. From the outset, France has been committed to seeking a reform capable of strengthening the international system's legitimacy and credibility in this sphere. In this respect, the adoption on 15 March of the resolution establishing the Human Rights Council is a major step forward. I salute the decisive role you have played in this great success, with your co-chairs Messrs Kumalo and Arias.

More permanent than the Commission, the Council will play its early-warning role to the full and allow the constant monitoring of the human rights situation in the world. With an enhanced status and more demanding membership selection procedures for States, it will enjoy renewed legitimacy and authority.

Heir to the Commission on Human Rights, it retains two of the Commission's characteristics to which France was and is particularly committed: NGOs' right to denounce criminal acts and ask the international community to shoulder its responsibilities; and multilateral investigation mechanisms. I am keen to see the operation of the new Council further reinforce these strengths.

The commitment of the States remains, of course, the essential condition for the success of United Nations action to defend human rights. In this new context, France is intent on staying in the forefront of the battle in the United Nations to ensure, in all circumstances, respect for human dignity, the primacy of law over reasons of State, justice for victims and the fight against the impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations, without allowing our security concerns to deflect us from these objectives.

We shall continue, inter alia, working for the abolition of the death penalty and prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. We shall also continue supporting the Convention against Forced Disappearances, in memory of the people who have disappeared in the throes of conflicts and dictatorships, as a gesture of solidarity towards their loved ones and for the protection of all human rights defenders, still today, too often threatened by arbitrary decisions.

(complimentary close, with handwritten addition)./.