COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE DISCUSSES UN SECRETARY-GENERAL'S REFORM PROPOSALS FOR THE TREATY BODIES

CAT
30th session
29 April 2003
Afternoon




The Committee against Torture this afternoon discussed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's reform proposals for the human rights treaty bodies which were created to monitor the implementation of the major human rights treaties and conventions.
The Committee especially debated two measures which the Secretary-General proposed in his report entitled "Strengthening of the United Nations: an agenda for further change" - that the committees should craft a more coordinated approach to their activities and standardize their varied reporting requirements, and that each State should be allowed to produce a single report summarizing its adherence to the full range of international human rights treaties to which it is a party.
The Chairman of the Committee against Torture, Peter Thomas Burns, said that the Experts seemed to oppose the idea of a State party presenting a single report to all the treaty bodies. At the same time, the Experts supported the idea of the committees harmonizing their activities and their requirements for reports. The Committee decided to ask its Expert Felice Gaer to convey these conclusions on behalf of the Committee to the meeting being held by the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Liechtenstein from 4 to 7 May to discuss responses to the reforms proposed by the Secretary-General.
Concerning the idea of a single report to be presented to all the treaty bodies, Mr. Burns said that States parties seemed to misunderstand the economy of scale aspect concerning their reporting obligations. He said that even under a single report, each State party would still have to address all the issues relevant to each committee, as was the case at present. While the human rights committees should remain open to all suggestions, they had to uphold their monitoring obligations of the various treaties and conventions.
The Committee will meet at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 30 April, to start its examination of the second periodic report of Azerbaijan (CAT/C/59/Add.1).



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