COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE OPENS FORTIETH SESSION

The Committee against Torture this morning opened its fortieth session by hearing an address by a representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, swearing in its newly elected members, electing its Chairperson and members of the Bureau and adopting its agenda and programme of work.

Ibrahim Salama, Chief of the Human Rights Treaty Branch and Representative of the Secretary-General, in an introductory statement, said that since the Committee’s last session, the Human Rights Council had resumed its sixth session in December 2007 and held its seventh session in March 2008. It had also convened its sixth Special Session on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Universal Periodic Review mechanism’s general guidelines had also been adopted during the Council’s September session. One very important decision of the Council had been to feed the outputs of the treaty bodies into the Universal Periodic Review process.

The total number of Member States to the Convention was now 145; Thailand was the latest country that had ratified the Convention. The Committee at the current session would examine eight State party reports. Since the last session the Secretariat had received five additional reports. Mr. Salama said that he understood that the Committee may be considering ways of expediting the manner in which it dealt with reports.

Also, during the meeting, Myrna Kleopas and Abdoulaye Gaye, the newly elected Committee members, were sworn in. The Committee elected Claudio Grossman as its Chairperson, Nora Sveaass, Essadia Belmir and Xuexian Wang as Vice-Presidents and Ms. Kleopas as Rapporteur.

The next public meeting of the Committee is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 29 April, when it will start its consideration of the third periodic report of Australia (CAT/C/67/Add.7).

Statement

IBRAHIM SALAMA, Chief of the Human Rights Treaty Branch and Representative of the Secretary-General, in an introductory statement, said that since the Committee’s last session, the Human Rights Council had resumed its sixth session in December 2007 and held its seventh session in March 2008. It had also convened its sixth Special Session on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Universal Periodic Review mechanism’s general guidelines had also been adopted during the Council’s September session. One very important decision of the Council had been to feed the outputs of the treaty bodies into the Universal Periodic Review process. The first round of country reviews had already taken place and several of the countries that had been reviewed would also be considered by the Committee this year. These were Algeria, Indonesia and Zambia. Thus, it would be useful for the Committee to reflect on the implications of the Universal Periodic Review for its work. This issue would surely also be discussed during the Inter-Committee and Chairpersons’ meetings in late June.

On May 3 of this year, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol would enter into force, said Mr. Salama. The members of this new Committee would soon be elected. The creation of a new treaty body underlined once more the need for continuing harmonization of the system. Also, the responsibility of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women had now been transferred to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. During its last session, it had adopted revised reporting guidelines. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was also well advanced in the revision of its treaty specific guidelines. The Human Rights Committee had also started revising its reporting guidelines at its last session. In that context, he looked forward to the discussions the Committee against Torture might have on this issue.

Mr. Salama noted that challenges persisted on making the treaty body system more visible. The Office was continuing its work to enhance awareness of the system. In conformity with this objective, training workshops on the different ways in which key actors could contribute to the reporting and implementation process were being conducted regularly. Technical cooperation capacity was also strengthened by different tools that had been developed or were being created, such as DVDs and CD-ROMs. Improvements were also being made to treaty body web pages ad database.

The total number of Member States to the Convention was now 145; Thailand was the latest country that had ratified the Convention. The Committee at the current session would examine eight State party reports. Work under articles 20 and 22 of the Convention would also continue. Twenty additional reports were still awaiting consideration. Since the last session the Secretariat had received five additional reports. Mr. Salama said that he understood that the Committee may be considering ways of expediting the manner in which it deals with reports. The Subcommittee on Prevention should also present its first public annual report on its activities to the Committee.

Looking ahead, Mr. Salama said that the Committee would certainly face a heavy workload, particularly as the Universal Periodic Review process was likely to encourage submission of reports to human rights treaty bodies and as capacity building measures of the Office generated more communications.

For use of the information media; not an official record


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