The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold its fifty-second regular session from 27 February to 4 April 2023 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, starting with a high-level segment from 27 February to 2 March, when dignitaries representing more than 125 Member States will address the Council.
The session will open at 9 a.m. on Monday, 27 February under the presidency of Václav Bálek (Czech Republic). The opening will be addressed by the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres; the President of the General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi; the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk; and the Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Ignazio Cassis. The Council will be meeting in room XX of the Palais des Nations.
During the session, the Council will hold 27 interactive dialogues with Special Procedure mandate holders and investigative mechanisms, nine interactive dialogues with the High Commissioner, three enhanced interactive dialogues and one high-level dialogue.
The Council will also hold the annual panel on promoting the mainstreaming of human rights throughout the United Nations system on the theme "A reflection on five years of Youth 2030, the United Nations Youth Strategy: mapping a blueprint for the next steps"; the biennial high-level panel discussion on the question of the death penalty on the theme "Human rights violations relating to the use of the death penalty, in particular with respect to limiting the death penalty to the most serious crimes"; a full day high-level meeting commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development; a high-level panel on the achievements, good practices and lessons learned by the voluntary funds for the Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the Human Rights Council; the annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child on the theme "Rights of the child and the digital environment"; the annual debate on the rights of persons with disabilities on the theme "Support systems to ensure community inclusion of persons with disabilities, including as a means of building forward better after the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic"; and a debate in commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
The final outcomes of the Universal Periodic Review of 14 States will also be considered, namely those of Bahrain, Ecuador, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia, Finland, United Kingdom, India, Algeria, Philippines, Brazil, Poland, Netherlands, and South Africa.
A detailed agenda and further information on the fifty-second session can be found on the session's webpage
