Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights opens forty-sixth session

Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights

2 May 2011

MORNING

Committee Elects New Bureau and Adopts Agenda and
Programme of Work

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights this morning opened its forty-sixth session this morning at the Palais Wilson in Geneva, hearing an address by Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Two new members of the Committee also took the solemn oath and the Committee elected a new bureau and adopted its agenda and programme of work.

In his address, Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said this Committee was facing a particular challenge, as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) had deferred its request for additional meeting time on two occasions. During the last substantive session of ECOSOC in December 2010, resolution 2010/37 was adopted requesting the Chairperson of this Committee to report on the steps taken to improve efficiency before a decision was taken by ECOSOC. At its last session, the Committee had asked the secretariat to inquire about the budgetary implications of working in two chambers. They had also requested information on the financial implications of conversion of pre-sessional working group time into plenary time, an issue which was raised on several occasions. All of these options, in addition to the pending request for an additional session could be further considered, and they would support the Committee in this regard. He pointed out, however, that the messages they were receiving from States went in the direction of limiting the approval of additional resources to the extent possible.

Mr. Salama then turned to developments of new instruments and treaty bodies, which was of interest to everyone, including with respect to the discussions on the continuous growth and increase in workload of the treaty bodies. On 23 December 2010, the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances entered into force. A draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child had also been placed before the Human Rights Council to establish an individual communications procedure under that Convention. It was expected to be transmitted to the General Assembly for approval during its sixty-sixth session. The Open-Ended Working Group on the rights of older persons held its first meeting in April and this welcomed attention to a gap in the human rights framework could also result in a new instrument and monitoring body.

Following Mr. Salama’s statement, Heisoo Shin and Renato Zerbini Ribeiro Leao, two new members of the Committee, took a solemn oath to discharge their duties as members of the Committee impartially and conscientiously. The Committee then adopted its agenda and programme of work and discussed the submission of State party reports in accordance with articles 16 and 17 of the Covenant.

The Committee also elected a new Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson and Rapporteur. Ariranga Pillay was elected as the new Committee Chairperson, Zdislaw Kedzia, Nicolas Schrijver, and Alvaro Tirado Mejia were elected as the new Vice-Chairpersons and Waleed Sadi was elected as the Committee Rapporteur.

During its three-week session, from 2 to 20 May 2011, the Committee will examine measures taken by Germany, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation, Turkey and Yemen to comply with the standards of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The next public meeting of the Committee will be this afternoon at 3 p.m., when it will consider item six on its agenda, relations with United Nations organs and other treaty bodies, following which it will take up agenda item four, substantive issues arising in the implementation of the Covenant, and hear submissions by non-governmental organizations.

Statements

IBRAHIM SALAMA, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that regarding the strengthening of the treaty body system, 2011 was a challenging year for everyone. A series of events had taken place aimed at bringing together individual groups of stakeholders to solicit their views and concrete suggestions on strengthening the working methods of the treaty bodies and making them more efficient for rights holders worldwide. They would be working together to prepare concrete and tailored proposals on improving the effectiveness of the human rights treaty bodies to improve effectiveness and better manage workloads as requested for all treaty bodies by the General Assembly and, in this context, also look forward to discussing concrete proposals.

This Committee was facing a particular challenge, as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) had deferred its request for additional meeting time on two occasions. During the last substantive session of ECOSOC in December 2010, resolution 2010/37 was adopted requesting the Chairperson of this Committee to report on the steps taken to improve efficiency before a decision was taken by ECOSOC. At its last session, the Committee had asked the secretariat to inquire about the budgetary implications of working in two chambers. They had also requested information on the financial implications of conversion of pre-sessional working group time into plenary time, an issue which was raised on several occasions. All of these options, in addition to the pending request for an additional session could be further considered, and they would support the Committee in this regard. He pointed out, however, that the messages they were receiving from States went in the direction of limiting the approval of additional resources to the extent possible. The General Assembly, at its sixty-fifth session, approved additional meeting time for the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Committee against Torture of one additional week per session as a temporary measure, after rejecting prior requests and requiring considerable justification, including with respect to the individual complaints procedure. If this Committee maintained that three meetings were required for the consideration of a report, he would encourage them to develop an explanation for this that would clarify for States, once again, why this was so. The secretariat remained available to discuss these issues further over the coming weeks.

Mr. Salama then turned to developments of new instruments and treaty bodies, which was of interest to everyone, including with respect to the discussions on the continuous growth and increase in workload of the treaty bodies. On 23 December 2010, the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances entered into force. A draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child had also been placed before the Human Rights Council to establish an individual communications procedure under that Convention. It was expected to be transmitted to the General Assembly for approval during its sixty-sixth session. The Open-Ended Working Group on the rights of older persons held its first meeting in April and this welcomed attention to a gap in the human rights framework could also result in a new instrument and monitoring body.

Mr. Salama also drew the Committee’s attention to the fact that 2011 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had been requested by the Human Rights Council to launch preparations for the commemoration of this anniversary. Correspondence related to this anniversary and work of the Open-Ended Working Group on the Right to Development was being addressed to all Chairpersons and their input and comments would be most welcomed.

Regarding the servicing of the Committee, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights worked closely with all relevant units of the UN Office in Geneva to ensure that the highest possible level of servicing was provided to the treaty bodies. As most of them were aware, the demands on the conference servicing units in Geneva had grown tremendously in recent years without the requisite increase in resources. They were also in discussions with the translation services and other units to see how to make the most effective use of the limited resources available to them and us. Mr. Salama therefore called on the Committee to continue to take these constraints into consideration in the course of its work by, for example, considering limiting the extent of written replies requested from States parties, as it had become increasingly difficult to ensure their translation which, in turn, greatly affected their work.

Discussion with Committee Members

Many Committee members thanked the outgoing Chairperson, Jaime Marchan Romero, for all of his hard work on behalf of the Committee and his diplomatic and inclusive manner.

Regarding Mr. Salama’s address, a Committee member raised a concern that a commission for women in New York was not aware at all of what this Committee was doing with regards to the rights of women, particularly regarding gender equality. Perhaps there was something the secretariat could do.

Someone else asked Mr. Salama for an update on the status of the review of the Human Rights Council and the Universal Periodic Review and what this meant, or would mean, for economic, social and cultural rights. Regarding a meeting scheduled for 12 to 13 May to which the Chairs of all treaty bodies had been invited, a Committee member asked whether this meeting would only be held in English and French. If so, this would set a dangerous precedent; as this was a formal meeting, it should be held in all the official UN languages; otherwise it would set a precedent of exclusion.

Another speaker asked what was being done to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development?

Mr. Salama said that they had transmitted a letter to all Committees asking them to think further on the right to development and he had not received any responses yet. This Committee was in a unique position to provide proposals on the protection and promotion of this right.

In terms of the meeting in May and translation services, this was an informal gathering so they would provide translation in English and French only.

Mr. Salama expressed surprise that the Committee on the Status of Women was not aware of the work of the Committee. This might be a reflection of the impact on resources on the work of the Committees. Without webcasts and better websites, they would suffer from a lack of visibility.

With regard to the review of the Human Rights Council and the Universal Periodic Review, thus far nothing had been decided that would impact the work of the Committees. They had apprehensions about what the Universal Periodic Review would mean for the treaty bodies, and they had found some useful elements they could use from the review, but the question still remained on what would happen with the second cycle and follow-up and what this meant for the Committees. There was still talk of having a reporting master calendar for States parties to synchronize their Universal Periodic Review with their reporting to the Committees.

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For use of the information media; not an official record