HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE OPENS ONE HUNDREDTH SESSION
The Human Rights Committee this morning opened its one hundredth session, hearing an address from Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Section of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, following which it adopted its agenda and programme of work.
Mr. Salama said this was an important session, as it marked a major milestone in the history of the Committee's work, and the Committee would celebrate this with a one-day meeting on 29 October, with the theme "Human Rights Committee: Stocktaking and Prospects". The need to take stock of the Committee's activities over the years and focus on future prospects was very timely. There had been a number of important new developments of interest to the Committee that had taken place since the last session. With respect to the main challenge facing the treaty body system, the High Commissioner's repeated call on different stakeholders to reflect on how to strengthen the treaty body system had led to a number of initiatives. With regard to work ahead, the agenda for the session would be a heavy one.
In follow-up questions and comments, speakers raised the issue of harmonisation of work between the different treaty bodies, as well as speaking of the hundredth anniversary of the Committee, page limitations on concluding observations, and the need for improved service by the Secretariat. The difficulties that the Committee faced also included a lack of awareness of its work, one Committee member pointed out. Methodologies should be piloted to improve this situation, said another, such as web-casting or audio-broadcasting. Strategic planning for human rights played a key role in harmonising work, said another Committee member. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was called upon to redouble its efforts to support States in their strategic planning on human rights to ensure that they had such action plans and a coordinated human rights strategy.
The Committee also formally thanked the former Secretary of the Committee, Ms. Nathalie Prouvez, and expressed appreciation for her work.
The next meeting of the Committee will be at 3 p.m. this afternoon, when it will take up the sixth periodic report of El Salvador (CCPR/C/SLV/6).
Statements
IBRAHIM SALAMA, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Section of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, opening the session, said this was an important session, as it marked a major milestone in the history of the Committee's work, and the Committee would celebrate this with a one-day meeting on 29 October, with the theme "Human Rights Committee: Stocktaking and Prospects". The need to take stock of the Committee's activities over the years and focus on future prospects was very timely. There had been a number of important new developments of interest to the Committee that had taken place since the last session. The Chairpersons of the treaty bodies had for the first time ever issued a joint statement at the occasion of the Millennium Development Goal Summit in September, urging Member States to be guided by human rights in finalising the Summit Outcome Document and in establishing national action plans, drawing the attention of Member States to the guidance offered by human rights treaties and the work of treaty bodies, and emphasising that realising the Millennium Development Goals should be an important step on the longer, and continuous, road towards the full and effective realization of all human rights for all.
With respect to the main challenge facing the treaty body system, the High Commissioner's repeated call on different stakeholders to reflect on how to strengthen the treaty body system had led to a number of initiatives. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights intended to facilitate consultations among treaty body members through the organization of a series of consultations involving the eight bodies which had a reporting procedure. The Human Rights Treaties Division was well aware of the needs of the various Committees, and worked closely with all the relevant units of the United Nations Office at Geneva to ensure that the highest possible level of servicing could be provided, and was working to try to streamline and rationalise procedures to harmonise practices among the treaty bodies, which hopefully would result in a more efficient treaty body system. States parties often faced difficulties in focusing their reports. All too often concluding observations were very lengthy and contained a myriad of recommendations, all of which the State Party was requested to address in its next periodic report. Discussions on the structure and length of concluding observations had already begun in the Inter-Committee Meeting, and would certainly continue.
The United Nations International Law Commission continued its deliberations on "reservations to treaties" during its 62nd session from 3 to 4 May and 5 July to 6 August 2010. Its discussions culminated in the adoption of draft guidelines on the legal effects of, acceptances of, and objections to, reservations as well as interpretative declarations, also in the context of the succession of States. With regard to work ahead, the agenda for the session would be a heavy one: the Committee would examine five State party reports, and the Country Task Force would adopt lists of issues on the periodic reports of Kuwait, Bulgaria, Jamaica and Guatemala, as well as adopting a list of issues on a State whose initial report was long overdue, namely Côte d'Ivoire. The Committee would also devote two meetings to issues regarding working methods, which would, among other things, focus on undue delay in dealing with communications. During the session, numerous individual communications would also be considered, as well as the progress reports submitted by the Special Rapporteur for Follow-up on Concluding Observations, and the Special Rapporteur for Follow-up on Views. Several meetings would also be devoted to the Committee's important work on draft General Comment no.34 on Article 19 of the Covenant.
Questions and Comments by Committee Experts
In questions and comments, a Committee member said that harmonisation was important, and the Secretariat had a role to play in the preparation for the centenary session. The work already in the pipeline with regard to the former was encouraging, and required further support. The Committee was sometimes irked by situations that did not quite call into question the conventions, but led to the Committees behaving differently, and lacked a uniform reaction, holding contradictory positions. The Committee could not call into question the need to protect and promote human rights everywhere, regardless of the aims of the conventions, and the specificities of the various texts should not stand in the way of this, regardless of their importance. With regard to the centenary, this was an event that should be taken at face value, and the members of the Committee ought to stand proud, not find it an irksome event, and should consider the substance and the procedures. This was an opportunity to improve the Committee and its procedures in general, and the Secretariat could do some real work in aiding this.
Responding, Mr. Salama said he could only agree with the speaker, noting that there was a lot left to be done, the Secretariat felt increasingly aware of the need to do this work, and had a much better awareness of where it could move on speedily. It was going to make an effort to ensure that all communities were aware of events, and had an opportunity to digest the process. The Secretariat needed to think more deeply about these issues, and the Committee's comments, individually and as a group, would feed into this work, so as to ensure that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was fully aware and could work on the basis of common ground. Preparatory work was underway for the hundredth session, and very hard work was required. One of the very difficult issues of the treaty body system was preparedness, visibility, and availability of the broad spectrum of persons who could be involved.
Another Committee Expert referred to page limitations, saying that the Committees were being put in a position to enforce arbitrary rules created by others. Not all concluding observations were as focused as they could be. The Committee did not want to be in a situation where States were relieved of the need to respond to its concerns simply due to the mechanical need to respect page limitations.
The Committee's Chair, Yuji Iwasawa, also took up the issue of page limitations, saying the Human Rights Committee was constantly reviewing its working methods and trying to improve them, intending to work closely with other treaty bodies to harmonise working methods, but had faced difficulties in this regard, such as translation problems.
Responding to these issues, Mr. Salama said the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was dealing with these problems on a case-by-case basis, but this was insufficient. It needed to deal with the issue in the long-term, as part of the harmonisation issue. The High Commissioner was raising the issue, saying that progress was being made, but whatever was being done would not solve the problem of the resources required. The system's expensive nature was inherent - the more instruments and ratifications there were, with the more countries reporting in time, the more resources were required.
The difficulties that the Committee faced also included a lack of awareness of its work, one Committee member pointed out. Methodologies should be piloted to improve this situation, said another, such as web-casting or audio-broadcasting. Strategic planning for human rights played a key role in harmonising work, said another Committee member. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was called upon to redouble its efforts to support States in their strategic planning on human rights to ensure that they had such action plans and a coordinated human rights strategy. The Chair pointed out that it was the will of the Committee to implement pod-casting, but had been told that it was very costly.
Responding to these issues and others, Mr. Salama said that if States did not receive translated texts in time, and if non-governmental organizations were not advised in their local language, then a lot was lost. Resources were also a focus of attention. Harmonisation was also important at the local and national levels, where it had deteriorated. The Secretariat was trying to work on the web-casting, and less on the audio-casting. There were so many things to do on whether or not there was a need for additional normative standards.
For use of information media; not an official record
CT10/015E