The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayala Lasso, has established a Human Rights Hot Line, a 24-hour facsimile line that will allow the United Nations Center for Human Rights in Geneva to monitor and react rapidly to human rights emergencies, such as the 1994 crisis in Rwanda. The hot line will be available to victims of human rights violations, their relatives and nongovernmental organizations.
The Hot Line Fax number in Geneva, Switzerland is 41-22-917-0092.
In addition, a Human Rights Database will be created at the United Nations Center for Human Rights in Geneva to gather information for use by special rapporteurs who are responsible for investigating questions such as religious intolerance, torture, racism and freedom of expression. The new database will contain information that will eventually be available by modem or other electronic means to human rights rapporteurs and experts worldwide.
Both measures are designed to improve the "timely flow of information from and to special rapporteurs form anywhere in the world" and form the basis of an electronic network linking the globe, Mr. Ayala Lasso said. The hot line will be especially valuable to those wishing to establish urgent, potentially life-saving contact with the Special Procedures Branch of the Center for Human Rights.
The measures are part of new moves by the United Nations to enhance the global flow and exchange of information. Such information is essential in addressing five priority areas of the United Nations human rights program:
Human rights emergency situations;
Developing situations which may require preventative action by the High Commissioner;
Investigative missions by special rapporteurs or working groups;
Follow-up action by the High Commissioner to recommendations made by special rapporteurs and working groups;
Implementation efforts, including the work of treaty-based bodies and the provision of advisory services and technical assistance to United Nations member states.
The new steps being taken by the High Commissioner represent the continued implementation of the Declaration and Program of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna, Austria, from June 14 to 25, 1993. Mr. Ayala Lasso, who was appointed as the first United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on February 14, 1994, said the Vienna Conference was a watershed, marking the realization of an "era of implementation" of human rights standards and mechanisms that have been developed over the past years.
