COMMITTEE REVIEWS DRAFT GENERAL COMMENTS ON "BENCHMARKS" AND ON NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

MORNING
HR/ESC/98/39
26 November 1998





The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reviewed draft texts this morning of general comments on "benchmarks" and on national institutions for human rights. The drafts were provided by the panel's Chairman, Philip Alston.

The term "benchmarks" refers to standards or targets, "partly quantitative... and partly qualitative", "to provide a basis on which the State party itself, as well as the Committee, can effectively evaluate the extent to which progress has been made towards the realization" of economic, social and cultural rights.

The Committee also indicated "general agreement", although some questions of language remained, on a draft joint statement with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Human Rights Committee on "the centrality of gender awareness as part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". The statement notes in part that the Committees "pledge to increase their efforts to assess factors and obstacles that impinge on women's enjoyment of their civil, political, economic, social, cultural and other rights and to suggest specific actions on how such obstacles might be overcome".

The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. to begin review of a third periodic report of Canada.