15/11/2010

Adoption of the report of Lebanon hampered by discussions about the inclusion of footnotes

The adoption of the report of the Working Group of Lebanon was delayed for over two hours on Friday 12th due to a debate over the inclusion of footnotes.

The review of Lebanon on the 10th witnessed several points of order by Israel when Lebanon and Syria mentioned the human rights violations resulting from the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and by Lebanon when Israel called the Hezbollah a terrorist organisation.

The State under Review wanted its points of order to be reflected in the Report and therefore a solution was found to put footnotes for each point of order from both States.

This was the first time footnotes were included in a Working Group report. Belgium, despite not objecting to the consensus, took the floor to regret this inclusion. The delegate stated that points of order should not be reflected unless they were supported by a ruling by the President of the Human Rights Council which was not the case.

The Report was finally adopted at 7 pm.
 
 
Read the Report of the Working Group of Lebanon here

Countries: Lebanon