Current developments in the negotiations on the United Nations Human Rights Council. After nine long months of intense negotia­tions, the Human Rights Council might ex­perience birth problems. Newly emerging difficulties in the negotiations around the Human Rights Council(HRC) heighten on the other hand the probability for a nearly full 62 nd session of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). Be it to make the best use of the clos­ing session of the Commission, as the date for the first session of the new Council might be­come questionable again, or, as the US am­bassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, has put it, to“remind everybody how bad it is” in order to“get on the track of real re­form.” 1 As a result of intense negotiations Jan Elias­son, president of the UN General Assembly (GA), finally had presented a draft resolution which seemed to be an acceptable compro­mise for the delegations of all member states. According to his statements, this draft is a product of thorough consultations with all interested delegations which would not meet his or any delegations expectations to a 100%. The importance of the draft, so Elias­son, was the fact that a compromise had been found which was acceptable for everyone. This notion was to be proven wrong by the utterances of Ambassador Bolton. He called the document in a press conference a“failed draft.” To correct the“many deficiencies” of the text, he said the US was prepared to en­gage in renegotiations now or push it off for several months. Would the resolution be brought to a vote in the coming days, as 1 Press conference, Feb. 28th on www.state.gov. planned by Eliasson, the US would have to vote“no”. Bolton even mentioned the possi­bility of line-by-line negotiations, although such a complete opening of the text could weaken the resolution(and the new body) drastically as it would also be used by other nations who prefer not to see a very strong Human Rights Council. As a consequence of the US’ threat to vote against the resolution, the decision on the Council has been delayed. Due to these cir­cumstances, the Commission, which was to start at the 13 th of March, has suspended its session for one week to wait for the decision from New York which is expected within this week. In the main points, the new draft resolution does not differ very much from previous drafts. It envisages a Council of 47 members 2 (split according to regions 3 ) which would be a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly. The members would be elected by a simple major­ity of the General Assembly for a three year term with the possibility of one re-election. The main purpose of the Council, which is supposed to meet at least three times a year for together no less than 10 weeks, would be 2 Many Western countries had called for a mem­bership significantly smaller than the one of the 53 member Commission. Yet, considering the augmentation of UN member states since the creation of the Commission in 1947, a 47 mem­ber Council seems to be acceptable for all. 3 African Group 13 seats, Asian Group 13, East­ern European Group 6, GRULAC(Group of Latin American Countries) 8, WEOG(Western and Others Group) 7