COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION DISCUSSES ISSUES PERTAINING TO ITS WORK

CERD
61st session
12 August 2002
Morning


Hears Briefing By Special Rapporteur
on the Right to Adequate Housing



The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this morning discussed a number of issues pertaining to its work and heard briefings by its Chairperson and the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the right to adequate housing.
Committee Chairperson Ion Diaconu told the Committee about a number of meetings he held recently, including with High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson; Officers of the Office of the High Commissioner, particularly the collaborators of the Anti-Discrimination Unit; and Special Rapporteurs of the Commission on Human Rights. Their discussions focused on the work of the Committee.
Concerning the meeting of the Chairpersons of Treaty Bodies, Mr. Diaconu said that recent developments on the follow-up of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action had been cited during the discussion. He also told the Experts about the results of the first inter-committee meeting held in Geneva from 26 to 28 June 2002.
Mr. Diaconu also said that he had met with representatives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) who had stressed the effectiveness of education in eliminating racial discrimination in light of the Durban Conference against Racism.
The Committee discussed the possibility of holding sessions of the Committee at UN Headquarters in New York to enable smaller nations to present their reports through their missions in New York.
The Committee also heard a briefing by the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the right to adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, who said that in setting out the framework of his work, he had called for the examination of a range of issues related to adequate housing, including gender discrimination, access to potable water, issues of economic globalization and its compatibility with human rights, the international cooperation dimension, forced evictions and poverty, and global social policies and their interface with human rights.
When the Committee reconvenes at 3 p.m., it will take up the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth periodic reports of Yemen.

Inter-Committee Meeting
The first inter-committee meeting of members of the six human rights treaty bodies was held in Geneva from 26 to 28 June 2002. Among the recommendations reached by the participants were: that States parties to United Nations human rights treaties should report in strict compliance with the periodicity set out in those treaties; information from and input of non-governmental organizations was critical to the effective functioning of the treaty bodies; and treaty body Secretariats should take a stronger role in ensuring greater consultation among treaty bodies.
The meeting recommended that treaty bodies should devise a framework to provide States parties whose reporting obligations under several human treaties were almost simultaneous with the option of staggering the dates of appearance before the different treaty bodies. Treaty bodies should make information submitted to them by non-governmental organizations available to States parties concerned. They should also seek to formulate concluding observations which reflected as closely as possible the contents of the dialogue with the State party concerned, and make precise recommendations.
It was also recommended that treaty bodies should make available any comments by States parties on concluding observations on their reports as public documents; and except where the correction of factual errors was concerned, treaty bodies should not engage in discussion with States parties on the form or content of concluding observations. They should also develop procedures for follow-up on concluding observations.

Meeting of Chairpersons of Human Rights Treaty Bodies
With regard to the fourteenth meeting of chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies, Mr. Diaconu said that at the end of their meeting, the chairpersons recommended that one entire day be allocated to the informal consultation with States parties during its fifteenth meeting. They also recommended that the chairpersons of all treaty bodies be sent formal invitations to attend the sessions of the Commission on Human Rights.
The chairpersons recommended that a limited number of substantive topics be selected for discussion at future meetings with UN departments, specialized agencies, funds, programmes and mechanisms, national human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations concerning the national-level implementation of treaty body recommendations.
It was also recommended that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights explore ways of financially supporting the presence of special procedure mandate-holders at treaty bodies sessions and other opportunities for dialogue. The Chairpersons felt there was a need for closer cooperation with the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, including the possibility of treaty bodies proposing to the Sub-Commission topics within their respective mandates, which would benefit from in-depth research.

The Right to Adequate Housing
MILOON KOTHARI, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the right to adequate housing, said that in setting out the framework of his work, he had called for the examination of a range of issues related to adequate housing, including gender discrimination, land access to potable water, issues of economic globalization and its compatibility with human rights, the international cooperation dimension, forced evictions and poverty, and global social policies and their interface with human rights.
Mr. Kothari said that his mission had taken him to Romania and Mexico where he observed the various factors affecting the right to adequate housing. In Romania he observed the lack of heating in many houses. In Mexico, he visited the Chiapas region where he saw the housing conditions of the indigenous population. At the beginning of the year, he had visited the occupied Palestine and observed how the right to adequate housing had affected the Palestinian people through dispossession. Next year, he was scheduled to visit Kenya, Brazil and Peru, among others.
He had suggested to States to take affirmative measures concerning minority and indigenous peoples; and to pay particular attention to women and other vulnerable groups in the society. The institutionalisation of the right to housing was also recommended to States.
Mr. Kothari said that in his report to the Commission, he recalled the need for a broad interpretation of the right to adequate housing as contained in the international legal instruments, keeping in view the indivisibility and interrelatedness of all human rights.
Asked about the justiciability of the right to adequate housing, Mr. Kothari said that more and more cases in many countries were presented to courts with regard to the right to housing.
He said that the process of privatisation had created discrimination and had affected many people's right to adequate housing.



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