COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION OPENS FIFTY-FIFTH SESSION

MORNING
HR/CERD/99/32


2 August 1999




Hears Statement by Representative of Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights


The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) opened its summer session this morning by adopting its agenda and programme of work.

The Acting Chief of Support Services for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Hamid Gaham, told the Committee’s 18 experts that Georgia and Indonesia had acceded to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, bringing the number of States parties to 155.

Mr. Gaham said he believed universal ratification of the Convention would be achieved, and to that end the Office of the High Commissioner had intensified its cooperation with other partners within the United Nations system.

At this session, the Committee will meet for the first time for a period of four weeks instead of the ususal three weeks. The panel will consider reports submitted to it by Haiti, Romania, Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Iraq, Chile, Jamaica, Latvia, Uruguay, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Australia, Kyrgyzstan, Senegal, Colombia, Azerbaijan, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Dominican Republic and Guinea.

When the Committee reconvenes at 3 p.m., it will take up a report of the Government of Haiti on national efforts to implement the Convention.


(For further information, please refer to the background release HR/CERD/99/31 of 27 July 1999.)


Statement by Acting Chief of Support Services Branch

HAMID GAHAM, Acting Chief of the Support Services Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the members of the Committee that since the panel’s last session, Georgia and Indonesia had acceded to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

He said the Convention now had been ratified by 155 States, placing it in third place among the six fundamental human-rights treaties, after the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. He said he believed universal ratification would be achieved, and to that end the Office had intensified cooperation with other partners within the United Nations framework.

Mr. Gaham acknowledged the great importance of the work of the Committee, work which was even more valuable since in a way it symbolized what every-day human-rights work was essentially about: the revelation of human-rights violations worldwide with thoroughness, patience and persistence, wherever they occurred, notwithstanding the priority and importance given to those violations on the political agenda of the international community.

Mr. Gaham said there was a need for continuous change and reform to enable treaty bodies, including CERD, to face current and upcoming challenges. At the same time, to achieve major changes in the system would take time and resources. He welcomed the steps taken by several of the treaty bodies to find innovative solutions to problems encountered on the threshold of the new millennium.