UN Human Rights council meets in Geneva for 43rd session on Monday

A month-long session of the United Nation's Human Rights Council will begin at its Swiss office in Geneva on Monday.

The 43rd session will last through March 20. It will assess member nations’ progress toward human rights goals and hear out government officials.

This year’s high-level panel discussion is themed "Thirty years of implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: challenges and opportunities."

The 47-nation body will discuss the impact that wars have on children as well as forms of exploitation that minors face in conflict zones and elsewhere, including trafficking and sexual abuse.

Another core topic on the agenda concerns racism and xenophobia, which have come to the fore amid a rise in the far-right sentiment in several developed countries.

The panel will look at ways of assisting war-torn nations, such as Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Congo, Mali and the Central African Republic in the field of human rights.

Safety of journalists, rights of linguistic and other minorities, Israel's violations of international laws in occupied Palestinian and Syrian territories, and the impact of state foreign debt on human rights will also be discussed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to speak at the Conference on Disarmament. He will also meet with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and other officials.

Fayez Sarraj, the head of the UN-recognized Libyan government in Tripoli is expected to speak about the rights situation in his country, which has been split in two since a war broke out in 2011.

The UN body meets three times a year to address human rights violations globally and advise nations on measures they should take to fix their shortcomings. Its decisions are not legally binding.