Tom Elliott – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Elliott on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of Faisal bin Hassan Trad’s appointment as Chair of a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council.

Mr David Lidington

The Ambassador of Saudi Arabia has served on the United Nations Consultative Group since 1 January 2015. His appointment as Chair was an internal decision made by the United Nations Consultative Group, which is a subordinate body of the Human Rights Council. The group is currently made up of five ambassadors, serving in their personal capacity, from each of the five regional groups in the UN. The UK’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva is not part of this Consultative Group and the appointment was not a decision of the Human Rights Council. It is standard procedure for the chairmanship of the Group to rotate during the course of the year.