Human Rights Committee continues discussion of working methods

28 July 2011

The Human Rights Committee has continued discussion of its working methods, hearing a presentation from Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, on treaty body strengthening.

Mr. Salama, addressing the Committee on 27 July, said that in May there had been a meeting in Sion which offered a rare opportunity to brainstorm with Member States. There was a crisis in the treaty body system and everyone realized the very survival of the system was at stake, but no one had a clear idea of how to fix it. Some ideas had come out of the meeting, although some concerns were expressed and there was push back from some Member States. Some of the concerns raised by States parties included not being listened to by Committees.

Committees not sticking to their core mandates and that they should not be formulating general comments or doing follow-up activities. Non-governmental organizations recommended establishing a master calendar of consideration of State party reports. At the Sion meeting the High Commissioner reminded those present that currently there was only 30 per cent compliance in reporting so if they had universal compliance they would need three times the resources that they had now. Thus far there had been no earth shattering suggestions, but they hoped that future meetings would result in ideas that would bring them closer to a sustainable ad effective system. Upcoming meetings included one with academics and another with United Nations agencies.

During the ensuing discussion, Committee members said that Mr. Salama’s update showed the important role the High Commissioner played in protecting and strengthening the treaty body system and increasing its accessibility because the system was not an end in itself, but rather it was intended to enhance the protection and promotion of human rights at the domestic level. This issue of a master calendar was one that many Committee members raised and they asked numerous questions about how this would work in practice.

In terms of reform, one Committee member said that before they could speak of reforming the treaty body system by coordinating with other Committees, they needed to reform their own Committee. They were late in their consideration of reports and their consideration of communications so they needed to reform themselves and show Member States that they were serious about their work. They needed to examine States more often than once every 10 years because otherwise their work was not effective. Reform began at home as it were. A Committee Expert asked how much of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ budget went to the treaty bodies. Also, how did they harmonize groups that dealt with such different topics? The treaty bodies were each set up in a different way and operated in a different fashion so it was up to new treaty bodies to look at the working methods of previously established bodies and determine what worked and what did not. Jurisprudence was very complicated and perhaps this was not the best place to start with harmonization efforts. Also, if some changes were not made in terms of engagement with the media and other stakeholders, the treaty body system could be completely overshadowed by the Universal Periodic Review process.

Many members expressed surprise that the Inter-Committee Meeting was discontinued and they asked why this was the case and why it had been established in the first place only to be cancelled a few years later. It was important to keep telling States what they were doing in terms of harmonization and if they kept trying to do new things there would not be a lot of time to do the actual work they had been asked to do. In terms of establishing a communications group that would consider all the communications submitted to all the treaty bodies, Committee members wanted to know how this would work exactly.

Mr. Salama said that nothing could replace the treaty body system, it could only be weakened and this decline was in fact happening before their very eyes and this was of concern. However, there was nothing they could do about the Universal Periodic Review process as this was created by Member States, but it could not replace the treaty bodies. In terms of the Inter-Committee Meeting, the reality was that there were numerous overlapping issues that were discussed in both the Inter-Committee Meeting and the Chairpersons’ Meeting. Having Committees meet outside Geneva was also something that was under consideration because this was cost neutral, except that the staff of the secretariat would have to travel to the location which would represent an additional cost. This was relatively minor compared to the added benefit of having the treaty bodies get outside of Geneva and New York, which made them much more visible and available and helped regional non-governmental organizations and regional mechanisms in Africa, Asia and the Arab world who benefit a lot from interacting with the treaty bodies.

Committee member Michael O’Flaherty gave an update on the last Inter-Committee Meeting and he made the point that there were some innovations during the session on the part of the body which had now been dissolved. The atmosphere was congenial and energetic with many exchanges on best practices. Those in attendance at the Inter-Committee Meeting had had no idea that the body was going to be abolished and they had not been invited by the Chairpersons to discuss the matter or consult with the Chairpersons and no one had been made aware that its demise was imminent.

In the ensuing discussion the Chairperson said that she had attended her first Chairpersons’ Meeting and she had not been made aware that the Inter-Committee Meeting was going to be discontinued. A Committee member said that the Chairperson’s comment showed why the Inter-Committee Meeting was so necessary because the Chairpersons’ Meeting did not fully represent all the views available and its composition was problematic. The fact that they could so cavalierly dismiss the Inter-Committee Meeting was evidence of this and they should reconsider their action at the next meeting. In fact, the Inter-Committee Meeting had taken up the discussion of joint follow-up to concluding observations for all the Committees and the Expert asked what had happened to this idea and if there was any follow-up on the suggestion.

On 28 July, Committee members moved on to the briefing on the Chairpersons’ Meeting that took place over the course of two meetings on 15 June and 1 July. The meeting adopted the decisions and points of agreement concluded by the Inter-Committee Meeting during its meeting from 27 to 29 June, as well as the Inter-Committee Meeting resolution on follow-up to communications and views. They had also discussed the issue of expertise and independence of Committee members. This subject had been under review for years, having been undertaken initially at a meeting in 1997 and another in 2008. They had recommended that a study be undertaken to look at the expertise and qualifications of Committee members with disaggregated data on geographical representation, gender and other factors. In terms of discontinuing the Inter-Committee Meeting, the possibility of combining the functions of the Chairpersons’ Meeting and the Inter-Committee Meeting had been discussed for some time and at this past session of the Chairpersons’ Meeting it was decided that the work of the Inter-Committee Meeting would be taken up by ad hoc thematic working groups within the Chairpersons’ Meeting and the Inter-Committee Meeting itself would be discontinued.

There had also been talk of whether to impose word limits on documents received from outside the secretariat. A Committee Expert asked whether the Committees had agreed to harmonize their time limit for State responses to communications. The Committee on Civil and Political Rights asked States parties to respond within 180 days, while other Committees required responses to be received in 90 days. Another Committee member asked whether the cancellation of the Inter-Committee Meeting meant there was now more money in the budget which could be allocated to the treaty bodies and whether this had been discussed at the Chairpersons’ Meeting. Where would this money go? Likewise, the issue of transparency of the budget should also be discussed at the next Chairpersons’ Meeting. Someone asked whether the Inter-Committee Meeting was funded from voluntary contributions whereas the Chairpersons’ Meeting was funded from the regular budget.

The Committee then held a detailed discussion in which it discussed travel authorizations for Committee members and the members were in agreement that if certain Committee members were not authorized to travel to meetings then none of the Committee members should attend. When the secretariat settled all of the problems with travel authorizations then they could meet, but any meeting held without the participation of all the members would not be a legal meeting of the Committee. Some Experts did not understand why this was an issue at all as they knew in advance that 18 Committee members would need to have airfare and per diem paid for to travel to the meetings so this should be budgeted for well in advance, so it was unclear why there were problems with travel arrangements.

The next public meeting of the Committee will be Thursday, 28 July at 3 p.m. when it will discuss its annual report. On Friday, 29 July, the Committee will conclude its discussion on working methods, announce bureau decisions and make public its concluding observations on the three countries reviewed during this session before concluding the session.
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For use of the information media; not an official record