We held our first side-event of the newly established Platform of Independent Experts on Refugee Rights (PIERR) at the The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) bringing together UN Special Procedures, Priya Gopalan, Vice Chair UN Working Group on Arbitary Detention, Gehad Madi, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Migrants, Matthew Gilbert, UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; UN Treaty Bodies: Jorge Contesse UN Committee Against Torture, and Regional Human Rights mechanisms: Commissioner Andrea Pochak Rapporteur on Human Mobility of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH_IACHR) and Commissioner Selma Sassi, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Migrants and Displaced Persons in Africa, of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Thank you to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and to United Nations Human Rights for support in bringing this platform together.
Really important to work with the regional human rights mechanisms and benefit from their expertise, particularly on refugee rights and access to protection gaps.
We will be working on a range of thematic priorities: access to asylum; rights of refugee and asylum seeking children; socio-economic rights, access to livelihoods and sustainable development; and climate change; statelessness; and gender.
