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China to Sign Agreement to Co-operate With UN on Human Rights

From: Mavlan Yasin/<MYasin@UniversalCare.com/ CND, 11/19/00]- 

                         Mary Robinson, the United Nation's High Commissioner for Human Rights, is scheduled to travel to Beijing on Monday where a milestone
agreement with China in cooperation on human rights is expected to be signed, according to a Saturday report by Reuters. "The main objective of
the visit is to sign a memo of understanding on technical co-operation in the area of human rights between the Office of the High Commissioner and
China. The significance is that this is the first time we have had a formal agreement with China on co-operation in the field of human rights. It is a
result that has taken a long time in achieving. I think it bodes well for the future of human rights in China," said Jose Diaz, UN human rights spokesperson in Geneva. The agreement is expected to include cooperation on human rights education in schools and the administration of justice. Other
UN technical cooperation agreements on human rights have included advice on the nuts and bolts of writing international human rights standards into
national laws and UN training for legal, prison and military officers and staff. The UN currently has such technical cooperation agreements with about
50 countries. Additionally, the memorandum to be signed on Monday is expected to be a precursor to ratifying two important international treaties
on human rights, which Beijing has signed but not ratified. One treaty  guarantees political and civil rights, while the other covers cultural,
social and economic rights. Mrs. Robinson and her Geneva staff have been working on winning such an agreement since September 1998, when she secured
a memorandum of intent with Beijing. Mrs. Robinson had hoped to sign such an agreement during the February-March period of this year, when she made her second trip to Beijing, but it did not happen. This UN announcement follows
the one made Thursday, saying that Presidents Clinton and JIANG Zemin had reached an  agreement in principle to resume human rights talks which stalled a year ago. (Tamara Perkins, WU Yiyi)

    

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