A/HRC/11/41 page 5 7. In December 2008, the Special Rapporteur attended the international conference on “Exclusion, a challenge to democracy” in Paris, organized by ATD Fourth World, where he made a presentation on “Access to justice and vulnerable groups”. On this occasion, he also met with the Paris Bar Association and contributed to its journal Le Barreau autour du Monde dedicated to the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. During the same month, he presided the panel debate on “New mechanisms to protect human rights” at the International Conference on the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, organized by the international section of the Lelio Basso Foundation in Rome. He also met with the organization “Magistrats européens pour la démocratie et la loi” and the Italian Judges Association. 8. On 21 January 2009, the Special Rapporteur contributed to the seminar on the Prevention of Genocide, held in Geneva, and made a presentation focusing on ways and means to support national efforts in the prevention of genocide. 9. On 26 and 27 March 2009, the Special Rapporteur will participate as a resource person in a Cambodian national conference on the role of independent institutions, to be held in Phnom Penh. B. Country visits 10. At the invitation of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Special Rapporteur visited the country from 19 to 29 May 2008. In January 2009, the Special Rapporteur visited Guatemala, also at the invitation of the Government (see A/HRC/11/41/Add.2 and Add.3, respectively). He wishes to thank both Governments for their cooperation regarding these visits. 11. The Special Rapporteur hopes that the mandate holder will be able to visit Cambodia, Colombia, Fiji, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines in the near future; a positive reply from some of these States is still expected. On the other hand, he is grateful to those Governments that have already confirmed an invitation and hopes that a suitable time for these visits will be arranged shortly. He also recalls that some visit requests are pending for several other States, some of them for over 10 years such as those to Cuba, Egypt and Tunisia. In November 2008, the Special Rapporteur made a request to visit Iraq. C. Other activities 12. A summary of communications sent to various Governments and the responses received, along with statistics for the reporting period (A/HRC/11/41/Add.1) has been published for the eleventh session of the Council. 13. The Special Rapporteur was part of the group of seven independent experts invited by the Human Rights Council in its resolutions 7/20 and S-8/1 to submit a report with recommendations on how best to assist technically the Democratic Republic of the Congo in addressing the situation of human rights, with a view to obtaining tangible improvements on the ground, taking also into account the needs formulated by the Government of the country, and to also urgently examine the current situation in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The report (A/HRC/10/59) was presented to the tenth session of the Council.