Human Rights Council assembly hall at United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, 25 January 2023. (Geneva Solutions/Paula Dupraz-Dobias)

🌏Geopolitical undertones as a busy Human Rights Council session begins. After its longest-ever session earlier this year, the Human Rights Council, opening Monday, is expected to be just as busy. But behind the pressing resolutions, reports and discussions scheduled for the next three-and-a-half weeks, diverging perspectives and shifting global interests prevail. Marc Limon, director of Universal Rights Group, tells us who he will be watching carefully on the floor of room 20.

🦈 Thirty-second meeting of Cites Animals Committee. In the first in-person gathering of the committee since the start of the pandemic, member states will discuss the trade of animals bred in captivity, which today make up the majority of all animals that are traded – a stark change from 50 years ago where a whopping 96 percent of animals meant for trade were snatched up from the wild.

The committee will continue work from a previous meeting into the protection of sharks and other endangered species on both land and sea and tackle other issues in order to deliver on its mission of protecting the world’s endangered fauna amid the ongoing climate and environmental crises. The emergence of future zoonotic diseases is also on the agenda.