Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 96: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs the plans he has to work towards calling a special session of the Commission on Human Rights to meet in Geneva in August 2008 to consider the situation of human rights in China. [23512/08]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Special sessions of the Human Rights Council can only be requested by members of the Council with the support of one third of the membership. Ireland is currently not a member of the Human Rights Council. I am not aware that any member of the Council intends to call for a special session on China

I would note, however, that General Assembly resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006, which established the Human Rights Council, replacing the Commission on Human Rights, mandates the Council to "undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfilment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all State."

This is a significant measure, subjecting each member State to a thorough review of its human rights performance every fourth year. It is based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned, and ensures that each member State is subjected to the same standards of review. I understand that China will be subject to universal periodic review early in 2009. Ireland, with our EU partners, will take a keen interest, and actively participate, in this review.

The EU has raised the situation in Tibet in statements at the Human Rights Council on 25 March and 6 June. The Government continues to take concerns about human rights in China very seriously. Our concerns are raised on a regular basis in political and official bilateral contacts with the Government of China. Discussions in this regard also take place at official level in Dublin and in Beijing.

Ireland also actively contributes to the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue, which is the agreed formal framework through which the EU raises human rights issues with China. The Dialogue, the most recent round of which took place in Ljubljana on 15 May, has allowed the EU to engage with China on such issues as freedom of expression, the death penalty, the independence of the judiciary, reform of the criminal justice system, freedom of religion and minority rights, and ratification of such international instruments as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The EU also continues to use the Dialogue to raise significant individual human rights cases. Ireland will continue to address serious our concerns regarding the human rights situation in China through open and frank engagement with the Chinese authorities, as well as through appropriate EU and UN mechanisms.