COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE OPENS FORTY-FIRST SESSION
The Committee against Torture this morning opened its forty-first session at the Palais Wilson in Geneva, hearing an address by a representative of the United Nations Secretary-General and adopting its agenda and programme of work.
Markus Schmidt, Team Leader of the Human Rights Treaties Branch and Representative of the Secretary-General, in an introductory statement, began by highlighting some important developments since the Committee's last session, including the entry into force, on 3 May, of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol. The first meeting of the new treaty body thus created would take place in February 2009.
Turning to the Committee's work during its current session, Mr. Schmidt highlighted that the number of States parties to the Convention was now 145, and the Optional Protocol now had 37 States parties, as Bosnia and Herzegovina had ratified the Protocol in October. There were 16 reports awaiting consideration in addition to the seven that would be dealt with at this session – i.e., the reports of Belgium, China and its two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lithuania, Montenegro and Serbia. In addition to other activities at this session, the Committee would meet with the members of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture, the Special Rapporteur on Torture and United Nations agencies and non governmental organizations.
Also at this morning’s meeting, it was decided to move the Committee's discussion of follow-up to State party reports from Friday, 14 November, to Thursday, 20 November, in the morning.
The next public meeting of the Committee is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 4 November, when it will take up the second periodic report of Lithuania (CAT/C/LTU/2).
Statements
MARKUS SCHMIDT, Team Leader of the Human Rights Treaties Branch and Representative of the Secretary-General, in an introductory statement, began by noting that the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was currently in Haiti, would be meeting with the Committee at the end of the week.
Turning to developments since the Committee's last session in May 2008, Mr. Schmidt drew attention to a number of events, including the celebration, on 10 December 2008, of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the framework of a United Nations-wide campaign that promoting the Declaration's ideals and principles. Also of note, in connection with preparations for the Durban Review Conference, as well as the sixtieth anniversary of the Convention on Genocide in December, was that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had began to explore ways to strengthen the prevention and punishment of genocide. In particular, the previous High Commissioner had urged the Human Rights Council to study the possibility of creating a dedicated mechanism to monitor the application of the Convention on Genocide or the possibility of creating an inquiry procedure through an optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, which could sound an early warning about situations at risk for degenerating into genocide. In that context, OHCHR had organized a seminar on 2 and 3 October to explore the balance between freedom of expression and the need to enhance protection against incitement to hatred, discrimination, hostility or violence.
As Members were aware, the Seventh Inter-Committee Meeting and the twentieth meeting of Chairpersons of treaty bodies had been held from 23 to 27 June, Mr. Schmidt said. Discussions at the Inter-Committee Meeting had once again focused on the working methods of treaty bodies, including possibilities for further harmonization. It was decided that the agenda for the Eighth Inter-Committee Meeting, to be held from 1 to 3 December 2008, would comprise discussion on revised treaty-specific guidelines, follow-up to concluding observations, consideration of a country situation in the absence of a report, and the Universal Periodic Review mechanism. The Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the Council and its links and cross-over to treaty body mechanisms had been extensively discussed at both the Inter-Committee Meeting and the Chairpersons Meeting, as well as the need for developing an effective cooperation between the treaty body system and the Human Rights Council and for strengthening the institutional links between the two systems had been clearly recognized. In that connection, during the two Universal Periodic Review sessions held since the Committee's last meeting, frequent reference had been made in the final reports on those reviews to treaty body recommendations.
Also with reference to the Human Rights Council, Mr. Schmidt observed that, on 18 June 2008, the Council had adopted resolution 8/8 on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
An important development with regard to other international human rights instruments had been the entry into force, on 3 May, of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol. They would therefore see the creation of a new treaty body before the end of 2008, Mr. Schmidt said, with the election of Committee members to take place today in New York, and the first meeting of the new treaty body to take place in February 2009.
Finally, turning to the Committee's work during its current session, Mr. Schmidt highlighted that the number of States parties to the Convention was now 145, and the Optional Protocol now had 37 States parties, as Bosnia and Herzegovina had ratified the Protocol in October. There were 16 reports awaiting consideration in addition to the seven that would be dealt with at this session – i.e., the reports of Belgium, China and its two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lithuania, Montenegro and Serbia. In addition the Committee would continue its work under articles 20 and 22 of the Convention (investigation of country situations on the basis of well-founded evidence of systematic practice of torture, and individual communications). It would also meet with the members of the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture, the Special Rapporteur on Torture and United Nations agencies and non governmental organizations. Follow-up to concluding observations and individual communications would also be discussed.
CLAUDIO GROSSMAN, Chairperson of the Committee, stressed that it was very important for the Committee to meet with the new High Commissioner for the first time. That meeting would take place on Friday, 7 November. He would like to insist that they had a meeting with the High Commissioner at each session.
Experts then asked a number of questions, including on requirements and deadlines for adopting new reporting guidelines. The Secretary of the Committee noted that about half of the Committees had adopted such guidelines already. According to the Inter-Committee meeting, the Committee had until the deadline of December 2009 to adopt their new guidelines. Other issues raised included translation of materials and the need for the Committee to review the final reports on the 32 States that had undergone a Universal Periodic Review. An Expert was concerned that an inequality was being created because States that had already been reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review had benefited from positive recommendations, whereas unreviewed States had not. It was also a matter of concern that not all treaty body recommendations might be included in a review under that mechanism.
Mr. Schmidt replied that the issue of inequalities created by the cyclical nature of the Universal Periodic Review, which examined 48 countries each year, was a topic that was being debated by the Secretariat. It was a very intricate system. A complex matrix was used to decide which treaty body recommendations were used in the Universal Periodic Review and which were not.
The reason that not all treaty body recommendations were used was owing to the stringent page limitations on the reports from OHCHR to the Council on each country. That was the "straitjacket that the Council placed on the Secretariat, hence making the necessity of establishing some regulations for the inclusion of treaty body conclusions", Mr. Schmidt noted.
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