HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE ADOPTS ANNUAL REPORT

27 July 2004


Human Rights Committee



The Human Rights Committee this afternoon adopted its annual report which provides an overview of its last three sessions, covering the period from August 2003 to July 2004.

Since the adoption of its last report, three States – Timor-Leste, Turkey and Swaziland - became parties to the International Covenant on Civil Political and Rights and four States became parties to the Second Optional Protocol – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Paraguay and Timor-Leste – thus bringing the total of States parties to the Covenant to 152 and of States parties to the Second Optional Protocol to 53. The number of States parties to the Optional Protocol remained unchanged at 104.

During the review period, the Committee considered 13 periodic reports under article 40 of the Covenant and adopted concluding observations on them. It further considered two country situations in the absence of a report from a State party and adopted provisional concluding observations in that respect. The Committee’s procedure for following up on concluding observations, initiated in 2001, continued to develop during the reporting period.

The Committee again deplored the fact that many States parties did not comply with their reporting obligations as per the Covenant. It therefore adopted a procedure for dealing with non-reporting states in 2001 by which it considered the measures taken by Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic during its seventy-ninth and eighty-first sessions respectively in order to give effect to the rights recognized in the Covenant, in both cases without a report and in the absence of a delegation.

According to the report, the workload of the Committee under the Optional Protocol continued to grow during the reporting period, as demonstrated by the large number of cases registered. A total of 91 communications were registered under the Optional Protocol as of mid-May 2004 and by the end of the current session, a total of 296 communications were pending, more than ever before.

During its eightieth session in March 2004, the Committee adopted general
comment No. 31 on article 2 of the Covenant on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant. Also during its eightieth session the Committee decided to devote its next general comment to a revision of general comment No. 13 on article 14 of the Covenant pertaining to equality before the courts and tribunals.

Throughout the reporting period, the report states, the Committee continued to contribute to the discussion prompted by the Secretary-General’s proposals for reform and streamlining of the treaty body system.