Human Rights Committee discusses draft Guidelines by International Law Commission on Reservations to Treaties

Human Rights Committee
15 July 2010

Also Considers Draft Revised Reporting Guidelines for States Parties

The Human Rights Committee this morning discussed the International Law Commission’s draft guidelines on the topic of reservations to treaties. The International Law Commission has been working on this topic since 1995 and plans to complete its first draft of a “Guide to Practice” in 2010. For this reason, relevant treaty bodies were asked for their comments and views on the guidelines.

Presenting the draft guidelines, Committee Chairperson, Yuji Iwasawa, said given the timeline of the International Law Commission for adopting its “Guide to Practice”, he felt it was important for the Human Rights Committee to contribute their thoughts and to do so soon. The Committee had before it both the guidelines and the commentaries which had been adopted by the International Law Commission last year. These guidelines pertained to the validity of reservations and were particularly relevant to treaty bodies. In a meeting that was held in New York some members expressed concerns about some of the guidelines.

In the ensuing discussion, the bulk of the concerns expressed by Committee Members focused on Guideline 3.2.2 and the unclear nature of the language used as well as concerns about the possibility of retroactive application or implementation under the guideline. Many Experts felt that deleting the last sentence in Guideline 3.2.2 would go a long way in addressing these concerns.

Committee Experts said the language in Guideline 3.2.2, such as the phrase “where appropriate” opened the door for misunderstandings. Concern was also expressed about the curtailment of well established functions of treaty monitoring bodies and whether any such measures could have retrospective effect. Committee Members asked whether States parties could adopt measures that applied to decisions taken by the Committee in the past. More generally, any open invitation, such as this one, to amend treaties was entirely unhelpful in the realm of human rights.

The Committee also discussed its draft revised reporting guidelines for States Parties. Committee Expert Helen Keller, the Rapporteur for this question, updated the Committee on where they stood on this issue. She said that the Committee had adopted a principal decision on a new procedure and they would elaborate the details on the new procedure going forward. There were also three hanging issues from their previous discussion. The Committee then held a brief discussion on paragraphs 59 to 61 of the guidelines and Committee Members raised the issue of uniformity throughout the document.

The Committee’s next public meeting will be held at 3 p.m. this afternoon, when it will begin consideration of the sixth periodic report of Colombia (CCPR/C/COL/6).

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For use of the information media; not an official record