COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS OPENS THIRTY-FIFTH SESSION

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights opened its thirty-fifth session this morning by adopting its agenda and programme of work and hearing an opening statement by the Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Maria Francisca Ize-Charrin, Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said one of the most important challenges facing the United Nations was the fight against poverty. In the Outcome Declaration of the 2005 World Summit, Heads of States had committed themselves to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development and global prosperity for all. The recent natural disasters in Asia and in Central and North America that had cost the lives of thousands of people and had deprived millions of their homes and other basic amenities, once more reminded the international community of the fundamental importance of equal access, in particular by vulnerable people, to adequate food, housing, drinking water and health care, among other things.

Ms. Ize-Charrin said the Plan of Action that was launched by the High Commissioner in May 2005 had identified the protection of economic, social and cultural rights as one of the priorities to be pursued by the Office over the next five years. A special task force composed of staff from all branches of the Office was currently considering the relationship between the capacity on economic, social and cultural rights within the Office and the work of the Committee, of the special procedures with mandates covering economic, social and cultural rights, and of the Working Group to consider options regarding the elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant. The High Commissioner had stated in her Plan of Action that the human rights treaty system was one of the Organization’s great achievements.

At the beginning of the meeting, a new Committee member, Arundhati Ghose (India), made a solemn declaration to perform her duty and exercise her power as a member of the Committee honourably, faithfully, impartially and conscientiously.

The Experts observed a minute of silence in memory of Kenneth Osborne Rattray (Jamaica), a former member of the Committee.

The Committee also adopted its agenda and programme of work for its three-week session during which it will examine reports submitted by Slovenia, Austria, Uzbekistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Libya. These countries are among the 151 States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Federica Digi, the Permanent Representative of San Marino, apologized for the delay in presenting the initial report of her country to the Committee, saying that this was due to a shortage in human and other resources. She said the report would be presented to the Committee in 2006. The Committee had planned to review the situation in San Marino at this session on the basis of all information available to it.

Also this morning, the Committee heard statements by the Chairperson/Rapporteur of the Working Group on an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Representatives of the Office of the High Commissioner's Field Office for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

When the Committee reconvenes at 3 p.m. this afternoon, it will hear statements by a series of non-governmental organizations concerning the situation in the countries which will be examined by the Committee during this session.

Statement by the Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

MARIA FRANCISCA IZE-CHARRIN, Officer-in-Charge of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said one of the most important challenges facing the United Nations was the fight against poverty. In the Outcome Declaration of the 2005 World Summit, Heads of States had committed themselves to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development and global prosperity for all. The recent natural disasters in Asia and in Central and North America that had cost the lives of thousands of people and had deprived millions of their homes and other basic amenities, once more reminded the international community of the fundamental importance of equal access, in particular by vulnerable people, to adequate food, housing, drinking water and health care, among other things.

The Plan of Action that was launched by the High Commissioner in May 2005 had identified the protection of economic, social and cultural rights as one of the priorities to be pursued by the Office over the next five years, Ms. Ize-Charrin said. A special task force composed of staff from all branches of the Office was currently considering the relationship between the capacity on economic, social and cultural rights within the Office and the work of the Committee, of the special procedures with mandates covering economic, social and cultural rights, and of the Working Group to consider options regarding the elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant. The High Commissioner had stated in her Plan of Action that the human rights treaty system was one of the Organization’s great achievements. Despite its positive and successful impact on national law, jurisprudence and policies, the current system was facing serious challenges. For most States, it was exceedingly onerous to report separately to different treat bodies, often on very similar or overlapping issues.
Action to meet those challenges had been ongoing for several years, Ms. Ize-Charrin said. Since the Secretary General’s call in 2002 for harmonized reporting requirements and the possibility for submitting a single report, treaty bodies had begun drafting harmonized guidelines for reporting. The High Commissioner’s Plan of Action emphasized the need to finalize and implement the harmonized guidelines so that the treaty bodies could begin to function as a unified system. The strengthening of the human rights treaty body system was also discussed during the fourth Inter-Committee Meeting and the seventeenth Meeting of Chairpersons which were convened from 20 to 25 June 2005.

The United Nations Mission in Kosovo had committed itself to report to the Committee on the situation of economic, social and cultural rights in Kosovo by 30 June 2006, Ms. Ize-Charrin said. Recently, the Mission had committed itself also to submit a report to the Human Rights Committee, together with an Expanded Core Document. That was the only example of a United Nations agency or institution accepting to provide information on how the provisions of the Covenants were being guaranteed. It would do so in accordance with its mandate contained in Security Council resolution 1244.

At the high-level expert seminar on the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights organized by the French Government in Nantes in early September 2005, which four Committee members attended, many participants agreed that all arguments in favour and against adopting an Optional Protocol to the Covenant had been exchanged and that the time was ripe for drafting an Optional Protocol, as controversial issues could be resolved during the drafting process.

Presentation by the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

CATARINA DE ALBUQUERQUE, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group established by the Commission on Human Rights to examine options for an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, said she had been asked to draft a paper with elements for an Optional Protocol in order to facilitate a more focused discussion at the third session of the Working Group. She had also been requested to present a paper containing a non-judgement analysis of the various options for an Optional Protocol.

The elements paper she had prepared firstly dealt with a communications procedure and analysed the scope of rights to be subjected to such a procedure, the admissibility criteria of a communication, the proceedings on the merits, the question of interim measures, the issue of the views and follow-up to those views as well as the question of reservations. The paper also examined the possibility of an inquiry procedure as well as the option of an inter-State procedure.

She had tried to illustrate the different options available with examples taken from international, regional and national case law, Ms. Albuquerque said. In her view, that made the text more interesting, more lively and it gave particular cases and situations a “human face”.

Other Statements

LAURE-ANNE COURDESSE, Representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' Field Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, speaking on the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said many of the problems relating to economic, social and cultural rights were a direct consequence of the political and administrative structure and the general context for human rights protection in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The structure of the initial report reflected the complexity of the constitutional framework of the country. The constitutional framework gave limited responsibility and authority to the State level government, and that was particularly true in relation to economic and social rights. The Constitution demarcated three constituent peoples and representation based solely on that criteria, which had allowed for a system whereby ethnicity was the determining factor in accessing rights, thus resulting in de facto discrimination against particular groups. That had a clear impact on the enjoyment of economic and social rights as well.

Constitutional reform was a precondition for a legal framework that ensured non-discrimination in law and practice and an effective implementation of the provisions of the International Covenant, Ms. Courdesse recommended. In the absence of constitutional reform, at a minimum the State should monitor and evaluate existing and future policies and laws in relation to their impact on the most vulnerable. There should be reform of existing legislation to adequately reflect and implement the gender law.

GREGORY FABIAN, of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, said as the tenth anniversary of the Dayton Accords approached, and the 2005 general elections loomed on the horizon, discussion on constitutional reform was gathering pace. However, such discussions were framed more often by the political rhetoric of the dominant political parties, while dialogue among them on constitutional reform, as a means of economic and social reform, was minimal. It was the Mission’s assertion that such constitutional reform would also go some way in promoting effective equality in access to and enjoyment of the rights protected under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The OSCE noted that there was little to no recognition of the issue of domestic violence in the report of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mr. Fabian said. Generally, throughout the country there was a lack of consistency in the legislative framework concerning the crime of domestic violence as well as a failure to implement the legislation which had been enacted. Also there was a lack of clarity of the crime of gender-based violence as defined in the Law on Gender Equality. Regarding prosecutorial and sentencing practices, undercharging with respect to domestic violence crimes was commonplace as were suspended prison sentences, while victims had little access to resources or support.

VLADIMIR VOLODIN, of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said the thirty-third session of the General Conference on UNESCO had adopted the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights on 19 October 2005. Given the rapid developments in science and technology, that instrument was welcomed as a meaningful and timely one. Many States considered the Declaration as a milestone in international standard-setting in bioethics and stressed that the Declaration should be treated as a whole with the already existing UNESCO Declarations in that field, namely the Universal Declaration on Human Genome and Human Rights and the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data. Some considered it not as an end in itself, but as a first step in the definition of a universal ethnical framework for sciences. Although the Universal Declaration was a non-binding instrument, for the first time in the history of bioethics, States were committed to solemnly respect and implement the basic principles.

UNESCO considered the Committee as a main partner to develop its research agenda, Mr. Volodin said. He hoped that their cooperation would be fruitfully developed in the name of their common purpose – to ensure a better implementation of economic, social and cultural rights.

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