United Nations Commission on Human Rights

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, a commission supervised by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is composed of representatives from 53 member states, and meets each year in regular session in March/April for six weeks in Geneva. In January 2004, Australia was elected as chair. In January 2005, Indonesia took over. The Commission on Human Rights aims to examine, monitor and publicly report on human rights situations in specific countries or territories (known as country mechanisms or mandates) as well as on major phenomena of human rights violations worldwide (known as thematic mechanisms or mandates).