Maldives today secured a seat on the Human Rights Council, the principal UN inter-governmental body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights and, alongside the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the UN system’s three Councils.<br/>A press statement from the Foreign Ministry of Maldives stated that this is the first time that the country had run for and secured membership of one of the main organs of the UN. It is being considered a major achievement in President’s Nasheed cap.<br/>The Human Rights Council has its seat at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the United Nations’ main centre of activity. The Council has a mandate to promote universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all; address situations of violations of human rights, including gross and systematic violations; and promote the effective coordination and the mainstreaming of human rights within the UN system.<br/>The Council’s 47 Member-States are elected for three-year terms by an absolute majority of the General Assembly in New York in a secret ballot. The members are regionally allocated with a third of them being elected each year.<br/>For the past year, the Maldives has been competing with Malaysia, Thailand, Qatar, and Iran for one of four seats allocated to the Asian Group for the term 2010-2013. Two weeks ago, after it became clear that the Maldives and others had secured strong cross-regional support, Iran dropped out of the race.<br/>In today’s vote, the Maldives came [top, second] in the Asian ballot, securing 185 votes. This was the highest of any State from any region in the election. This strong support for the Maldives amongst UN Member-States was mirrored by support from international human rights groups and NGOs.<br/>A joint report by UN Watch and Freedom House containing an expert evaluation of candidates to the Human Rights Council concluded that of 14 candidate countries from all regional groups, only five (Maldives, Guatemala, Spain, Switzerland and Poland) have human rights records that merit Council membership.