COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS HEARS REPORTS ON INTER-COMMITTEE AND CHAIRPERSONS MEETINGS

Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights 10 November 2004


Discusses Draft Guidelines for Expanded Core Document


The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights this morning heard reports on the third Inter-Committee meeting and the sixteenth meeting of Chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies.

Committee Expert Eibe Riedel told the Committee that the Inter-Committee meeting held in June 2004 in Geneva had focused on harmonizing working methods and strengthening the human rights treaty body system. States had been complaining that they had to report to different treaty bodies in a very short space of time. During the meeting, it was suggested that a different approach should be taken to resolve the problems faced by States parties.

Mr. Riedel said that among the proposals was for the State party to submit a common, expanded and updated core document to all the treaty bodies which provided extensive information on the country. The expansion of computer-based information was also proposed.

On the treaty-specific document, the Expert said there was general agreement that changes should be made to avoid unnecessary duplication. Substantive progress had been made during the meeting.

Committee Chairperson Virginia Bonoan-Dandan, reporting on the sixteenth meeting of Chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies, said that for the first time the newly elected Chairperson of the Committee on Migrant Workers and Members of their Families had joined the meeting. The meeting had focused on the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child which had a real backlog of reports which posed a problem. Since the Convention on the Rights of the Child was almost universally ratified, the number of States parties submitting initial and periodic reports had increased. The 18-member Committee had proposed, on an experimental basis, to sit in two chambers.

Ms. Bonoan-Dandan said that the Chairpersons had held a dialogue with members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, who had attended the meeting as observers. She said regional human rights mechanisms were important in the promotion and protection of human rights. The Inter-Parliamentary Union was also present for the first time. The impact on human rights of counter-terrorism measures had been dealt with during the session. Switzerland was preparing a pilot project on how to prepare an expanded core document and a treaty-specific report.

The Chairperson noted that the accuracy of press releases had been a concern expressed by several States, and the Chairpersons had recommended that all press releases should include a disclaimer stating that they did not constitute official records.

The Committee also discussed the draft guidelines on an expanded core document and treaty-specific targeted reports and harmonized guidelines on reporting under the international human rights treaties. The common core document would present information of general relevance to all treaty bodies and should be submitted to each treaty body in tandem with a targeted treaty-specific document prepared specifically for that committee. The treaty-specific document would provide each treaty body with information relating to the provisions of the treaty which were specific to that treaty.

When the Committee reconvenes at 3 p.m. this afternoon, it is scheduled to take up the fourth periodic report of Denmark (E/C.12/4/Add.12).




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