QUNO was pleased to have actively engaged in the informal negotiations of a landmark new UN Human Rights Council resolution on prevention. The resolution, led by a core group of Norway, Sierra Leone, Switzerland and Uruguay, was adopted by vote at the 45th session of the Council with 32 in favour, 11 abstentions and 3 against.

The resolution included significant elements that QUNO had supported and highlighted, including:

Application process update

The application process is closed. 

We take this opportunity to thank everyone for their applications and to inform you that we are continuing with this recruitment. As a result of the current situation with Covid-19 our timelines for interviews have changed.  We are currently shortlisting. We will contact only those who we invite for interview. If you have not heard from us by 31 May please assume that you have not been selected for interview.  

Building on its long-term work on integrating human rights and sustaining peace, QUNO has been supporting work led by the three rapporteurs in charge of implementing resolution 38/18 on ‘the contribution of the Human Rights Council (HRC) to the prevention of human rights violations’.  In particular, QUNO has focused on how the HRC can more effectively work with all UN pillars to prevent those violations which, if left unaddressed, could lead to violent conflict.

In April, QUNO's Florence Foster was invited to speak during the first Intersessional seminar on the contribution of the Human Rights Council to the prevention of human rights violations (resolution 38/18). Florence noted that human rights violations are both the cause and effect of destructive conflict, and they therefore play a central role in early warning, prevention of destructive conflict, and in providing the basis for accountability through to rebuilding societies.

This panel, organized by ​the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Berghof Foundation and the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) during Geneva Peace Week, discussed how we can integrate human rights, nonviolent action and peacebuilding to sustain peace by bridging the silos and shifting the mindset of how civil society participates through nonviolent action and peacebuilding.

Examples of how this is done came from practitioners as well as policy level experts: