General information

A meeting of States parties will take place in New York (NLB Conference Room 1) on 17 January 2012 at 10 a.m. The purpose of this extraordinary meeting is to conduct two by-elections to fill casual vacancies arising from the resgination of two members of the Human Rights Committee last year.

It is envisaged that the voting will proceed in two stages: the first vote will determine the candidate who will take over the mandate which expires on 31 December 2014; the second vote will determine which of the remaining candidates will take over the mandate which expires on 31 December 2012.

Quorum

Pursuant to article 30, paragraph 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the necessary quorum for the meeting is two-thirds of the 167 States Parties to the Covenant, that is to say 112 States Parties. To avoid the meeting being substantially delayed or postponed, representatives of States Parties should be present at the scheduled time of the meeting.

Credentials

In accordance with Rule 2 of the Revised Rules of Procedures of the Meeting of the States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the credentials of representatives and the names of members of a delegation issued by the Head of State or Government or by the Minister for Foreign Affairs should be submitted to the Secretary-General prior to the Meeting. The credentials may be brought to the Meeting or sent in advance to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in New York ( for the attention of Mr. James Turpin, DC1 - 0504).

Additional meetings in 2012

States parties are informed that two further meetings of states parties will take place in 2012: a further by-election will be held at an extraordinary meeting to be organized on a date to be determined in April or May in order to fill the casual vacancy arising from the death of a member of the Human Rights Committee last month; the regular scheduled elections to replace those members of the Committee whose terms expire in December 2012 will be held at a meeting already scheduled to take place in September 2012.

30th Meeting of States parties

States parties to the Convention were invited to nominate their candidates by 5 December 2011.

List of candidates as submitted by the States parties:

The membership of the Human Rights Committee is currently as follows (it includes the original members behind the vacant seats):

The following documents were issued for the thirty meeting of States parties.