UAE wins UN Human Rights Council seat for second term

The UAE was elected in a secret ballot conducted by the UN General Assembly in which 32 candidate countries from different geographical groups competed for 18 vacant seats.

The United Arab Emirates has won a second three-year term membership of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), starting from the beginning of 2016 and ending in late 2018, national news agency Wam reported today.
The UAE was elected in a secret ballot conducted by the UN General Assembly in which 32 candidate countries from different geographical groups competed for 18 vacant seats. Along with the UAE, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, and South Korea were elected from Asia, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland from West Europe, Georgia and Slovenia from East Europe, Burundi, Cote D'Ivoire, Togo and Ethiopia from Africa and Panama, Ecuador, and Venezuela from Latin America and the Caribbean.
The UAE got 159 votes, the second highest vote turnout of the total votes garnered by the other Asian countries.
Lana Nusseibeh, the Permanent Representative of UAE to the UN, welcomed the UAE win, saying :" This is yet another milestone for the UAE's diplomacy and a testimony from the international community of the great achievements made by a country that is small in size but large in its contributions to, and records in human rights."
She added that UAE's human rights records are reflected in the great progress made, particularly in areas of legislations to uphold and protect fundamental freedoms to citizens and residents alike, the national programmes for the welfare of women and children and advanced regulations on rights of foreign workforce.
"The UAE win of the HRC seat for a second term will lay on our shoulder additional onus and commitment to stay our course firmly in consistence with constitutional principles on which the UAE is built and which place respect for human rights at the top of national priorities," Lana Nusseibeh said.
She went on to say that the UAE will continue its cooperation with this important international organisation and with other states and international organisations to ensure that all forms of human rights violations are eliminated.
She thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the team who contributed to that win.