Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination opens seventy-seventh session

Adopts Agenda and Programme of Work

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this morning opened its seventy-seventh session, hearing an address by Carla Edelenbos, acting interim Chief of the Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section of the Human Rights Treaty Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Committee also adopted its agenda and programme of work.

Carla Edelenbos, acting interim Chief of the Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section of the Human Rights Treaty Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in opening remarks, said that many stakeholders, including treaty body experts, had responded to the call by the High Commissioner to reflect and submit proposals on ways to streamline and strengthen the treaty body system. Since then, a number of initiatives had taken place or were planned. The Dublin Statement on treaty body strengthening was issued in November 2009. Two months ago, all regional networks of national human rights institutions were invited by the Advisory Council on Human Rights of Morocco to a meeting on strengthening the human rights treaty body system. Participants adopted the Marrakech Statement that formulated some interesting ideas in this regard. Other consultations were under preparation, including a follow-up event to the Dublin meeting which would be organized this autumn in Poland, as well as a civil society consultation meeting.

Ms. Edelenbos said that since the Committee’s last session, Estonia had recognized the competence of the Committee to consider individual communications as established by Article 14(1) of the Convention, thus bringing the number of States parties which recognized such competence to 54. Regarding other treaty body-related developments, Ms. Edelenbos said that in June the first ratification of the new Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was received from Ecuador. Regarding the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, only two more ratifications were needed to reach the 20 ratifications required for its entry into force. In addition, membership of several treaty bodies, namely the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, had increased due to new ratifications.

The Committee Chairperson, Anwar Kemal, thanked Ms. Edelenbos for her remarks and opened the floor to comments from Committee Members. One Committee Member asked for additional information on how joint general comments were formulated between committees, as there was no formal methodology for developing such comments. Another Committee Member pointed out that it might be a good idea to develop such a methodology. A Committee Member asked about following up on racial discrimination in the context of natural disasters. Several Committee Members brought up the issue of the backlog in translation of reports into official United Nations languages. Several Committee Members also raised concerns regarding the suggestion that reports that exceed page limits established by reporting guidelines be sent back to submitting countries.

Ms. Edelenbos said that a joint working group had been established to develop the joint general comment, which would then be adopted by the two Committees. There was no established methodology at this stage, but the Committee could take the initiative to reach out to another Committee and begin work on a joint general comment. Ms. Edelenbos said that reports that exceeded the number of pages suggested in the reporting guidelines would not be refused, but consultations should be held with the State party to determine if the report could be edited and its pages reduced and if not the delegation would have to be made aware that translation could possibly be delayed.

The next public meeting of the Committee will be at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 3 August, when it will hold a meeting with non-governmental organizations.

STATEMENT

CARLA EDELENBOS, Acting Interim Chief of the Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section of the Human Rights Treaty Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in opening remarks updated the Committee on a number of important developments since the Committee’s last session in February 2010. The ninth session of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent took place from 12 to 16 April 2010. This year the Working Group concentrated its work on the analysis of structural discrimination against people of African Descent and a discussion on possible activities in the context of the International Year for People of African Descent, which will be 2011. The participation of Committee Members Elias Martinez Murillo and Dilip Lahiri in this meeting was highly appreciated as it enriched the debates of the Working Group of Experts of African Descent both in its discussions on structural discrimination as well as in the identification of activities for the International Year for People of African Descent.

In terms of strengthening the treaty body system, Ms. Edelenbos said that many stakeholders, including treaty body experts, had responded to the call by the High Commissioner to reflect and submit proposals on ways to streamline and strengthen the treaty body system. Since then, a number of initiatives had taken place or were planned. The Dublin Statement on treaty body strengthening was issued in November 2009. Two months ago, all regional networks of national human rights institutions were invited by the Advisory Council on Human Rights of Morocco to a meeting on strengthening the human rights treaty body system. Participants adopted the Marrakech Statement that formulated some interesting ideas in this regard. Other consultations were under preparation, including a follow-up event to the Dublin meeting which would be organized this autumn in Poland, as well as a civil society consultation meeting.

Ms. Edelenbos then provided information on the eleventh Inter-Committee Meeting, which was held from 28 to 30 June 2010 and the Committee was represented by its Chairperson, Anwar Kemal. The eleventh Inter-Committee Meeting devoted a great part of its time to discussing lists of issues prior to reporting. It noted with interest the optional reporting procedures adopted by the Committee Against Torture and the Human Rights Committee in respect of lists of issues prior to reporting. The Inter-Committee Meeting encouraged all treaty bodies to consider whether such procedures could be applicable to them and recommended that the Committee Against Torture and the Human Rights Committee report back to the twelfth Inter-Committee Meeting on their experiences in implementing such procedures, including a preliminary assessment of their advantages and challenges. The Inter-Committee Meeting also welcomed the initiative by the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to prepare a joint general comment and recommended that other Committees explore the possibility of issuing joint general comments. Ms. Edelenbos went on to say that participants at the eleventh Inter-Committee Meeting and the seventeenth annual meeting of the Special Procedure mandate holders jointly recommended more systematic cross-referencing and reinforcement of Special Procedures and treaty bodies’ recommendations. Specifically, Special Procedures’ recommendations and invitations for country visits could be taken into account and referred to in the treaty body’s concluding observations. Similarly, reference to and follow-up to treaty bodies’ recommendations and decisions should be made by mandate holders in their reports and during country visits. In this respect, it was emphasized that recommendations be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound to enable enhanced follow-up.

The twenty-second meeting of the Chairpersons was held from 1 to 2 July 2010 and the Committee was represented by Fatima-Binta Victoire Dah. The meeting was held in Brussels, and this was the first meeting of Chairpersons held outside Geneva. The main objective of this initiative was to bring treaty bodies closer to the implementation level, to non-governmental organizations and regional mechanisms and to raise awareness in Europe about treaty body work in order to strengthen linkages, synergies and implementation between international and regional human rights mechanisms. The achievements of this meeting were: giving increased visibility to the treaty body system; enabling regional and international human rights mechanisms to collaborate and mutually reinforce one another; and providing tools to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights regional offices so as to ensure greater impact of treaty body output through their activities in the field.

Ms. Edelenbos said that since the Committee’s last session, Estonia had recognized the competence of the Committee to consider individual communications as established by Article 14(1) of the Convention, thus bringing the number of States parties which recognized such competence to 54. With regard to compliance of States parties with their reporting obligations under the Covenant, since the Committee’s last session 10 States parties had submitted their periodic reports.

Regarding other treaty body-related developments, Ms. Edelenbos said that in June the first ratification of the new Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was received from Ecuador. Regarding the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, only two more ratifications were needed to reach the 20 ratifications required for its entry into force. In addition, membership of several treaty bodies, namely the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, had increased due to new ratifications.

While these developments were encouraging, Ms. Edelenbos said there were also considerable challenges facing the treaty body system. Advances in the system would only be achieved when they fully took heart that while each treaty body was an independent legal mechanism monitoring specific treaties, none of them worked in isolation. It was critical to develop and uphold a clear vision of a coherent treaty body system. It was incumbent upon all treaty bodies to contribute to this process by continuing to further improve and harmonize their working methods. In order to better prepare for the current and future requirements, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had engaged a consultant to map out treaty body related work flows and work processes within the Office. The aim of this consultancy was to come up with concrete recommendations in the overall mandate of Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The High Commissioner and everyone at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights looked forward to the continued progress of the Committee’s work. They hoped to see broad agreement on the meaningful set of treaty body strengthening measures emerging in the near future. In this regard, they counted on the Committee’s expertise and support.

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