A. State reports

1. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Before discussing reports, it is important to understand the nature and role of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Committee that receives and reviews reports from States and other stakeholders. Article 34 establishes the Committee. It is a treaty body of 18 independent experts acting in their personal capacity. They are elected by State parties to the Convention at the Conference of States Parties and possess certain characteristics, such as:

When electing these experts, State parties should give consideration to a range of issues explicitly referred to in article 34, including:

This last criterion—the participation of experts with disabilities—is a novelty in the Convention and attests to the fact that persons with disabilities have often been excluded from decision-making processes that affect them. In a similar vein, State parties are invited to give due consideration to article 4 (3) when nominating experts. Article 4 (3) requires States to consult closely with and actively involve persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities, and their representative organizations in decision-making processes that affect them (and specifically in relation to decisions on laws and policies). While the call to participation is relatively weak—States are only invited to consider this in nominating experts—it nonetheless provides an indication that the nomination process should not be a purely government concern but that other parts of society also have a role to play and an interest in the Committee's membership.

The Committee's experts are elected for a four-year term, renewable once.

The Committee's main responsibility is to receive comprehensive reports from each State party to the Convention (see below).

In addition, under the Optional Protocol, the Committee can:

The Committee also undertakes thematic work. It:

Finally, the Committee has authority in relation to its own administration. For example:

2. The requirement on States to report

According to article 35 (1), “[e]ach State Party shall submit to the Committee, through the Secretary-General of the United Nations, a comprehensive report on measures taken to give effect to its obligations under the present Convention and on the progress made in that regard, within two years after the entry into force of the present Convention for the State Party concerned.”

After the initial report, the State party must submit subsequent reports at least every four years and whenever the Committee requests it. The subsequent report is often referred to as a periodic report. The possibility of the Committee requesting reports at any time was added so that it can respond to particular situations that require its attention outside the four-year cycle.

3. The reporting cycle

The reporting cycle is similar to that under any human rights treaty. The important factor to remember is that it is a cycle. It is not, or at least it should not be, a one-off event, but rather a process that comprises the following steps:

A potentially significant difference compared to other treaties is the fact that State parties are invited to consider adopting an open and transparent process in drafting the report, taking into account article 4 (3). As noted above, this article requires States to consult closely with and actively involve persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities, and their representative organizations in decision-making processes that affect them (and specifically in relation to decisions on laws and policies). Again, the requirement on States is only to give due consideration to the participation of persons with disabilities in the preparation of the report. Nonetheless, it provides a further indication that this drafting process (and indeed the whole reporting cycle) should not be a purely government concern but also a legitimate interest of other parts of society.

4. Documents to prepare

There are two main documents for the State to prepare:

5. Methodology

There is no strict methodology that States have to follow for the preparation of their reports, but the following steps are relevant:

6. Content: the reporting guidelines14

The Committee has prepared reporting guidelines to advise States parties on the form and content of their reports, so as to facilitate the preparation of reports and ensure that these are comprehensive and presented in a uniform manner by States parties. Compliance with the reporting guidelines will also reduce the need for the Committee to request further information under article 36 and under rule 36, paragraph 3, of its rules of procedure.

In relation to the rights recognized in the Convention, the treaty-specific document should indicate:

The treaty-specific document should be delivered in accessible electronic format and in print.

The report should follow paragraphs 24 to 26 and 29 of the harmonized reporting guidelines.

The format of the Convention-specific document should be in accordance with paragraphs 19 to 23 of the harmonized reporting guidelines. The initial report should not exceed 60 pages, and subsequent Convention-specific documents should be limited to 40 pages. Paragraphs should be numbered sequentially.

The reporting guidelines suggest the following broad structure:

The Committee's reporting guidelines set out specific issues that State parties should report on, provision by provision.

The initial report submitted by Peru (CRPD/C/PER/1), part of which is reproduced below, provides a good example as the State party reported on each of the guidelines identified by the Committee. For article 29, for instance, the table below sets out the Committee's guidelines in the left-hand column and the measures undertaken in the right-hand column. The example is interesting for at least two reasons:

7. List of issues

Once the Committee has received the State party's report, its country rapporteur (a member of the Committee) will examine it, and the Committee with the assistance of the rapporteur will decide if there is any information missing from the report. On this basis, the Committee forwards a list of issues to the State party with a view to completing the information in the report. Generally, State parties will respond to the list of issues in writing prior to the constructive dialogue with the Committee.

The list of issues is normally decided by the Committee at the session before the constructive dialogue with the State party. This allows the State party sufficient time to respond. It also gives the Committee time to reflect on the additional information provided by the State and decide whether it now has enough information on a certain subject matter or whether further follow-up is necessary during the constructive dialogue.

The report of Tunisia provides an example of how the list of issues works. The State party, in its initial report, provided information on the rights of children with disabilities, although this focused primarily on health and education. Tunisia did not provide information on the protection of children from violence and exploitation. The Committee therefore requested this information. In its response (CRPD/C/TUN/Q/1/Add.1), Tunisia noted:

It is interesting to note that the State party provides little information on the protection of children with disabilities specifically, but more on its child protection system more generally. While this of course should apply to children with disabilities, too, there are a range of reasons why laws and policies should specifically mention the protection of children with disabilities. For example, adults might have difficulty communicating with children who are deaf, which in turn might make them more susceptible to violence and abuse as they might not be able to seek protection.

Although the State party did not fully address the Committee's question, it nonetheless helped the Committee to identify that there is a child protection system in place, allowing for more specific questioning during the Committee's session and hence ensuring the optimal use of the Committee's limited time.

8. The Committee's session

The next step is for the State party to come before the Committee to enter into a constructive dialogue. On that basis, the Committee will issue concluding observations and recommendations for the State party.

The Committee currently has two sessions a year with many items on its agenda. From the beginning of 2014, it will have altogether five weeks of plenary meetings and two weeks of pre-sessional working group meetings. The first day will typically begin with opening speeches by its Chair and a representative of OHCHR. This will be followed by discussions in plenary session with representatives of United Nations organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as well as OHCHR and then by representatives of civil society. The Committee might also meet in private session to prepare the dialogue with a State party.

The Committee will then meet with the State party. The Committee's dialogue with States parties is split into two meetings of three hours on two different days. It begins with the presentation by the State representative and then an introduction by the Committee's country rapporteur. The Committee's members then take the floor to reflect on the State party's report and ask additional questions. The dialogue proceeds in three stages with a set of questions posed by the Committee's members followed by replies provided by the State party. The State representatives are given time to respond at intermittent stages throughout the day. The Committee will then meet in private session to discuss its concluding observations and recommendations, which also takes some time.

In addition to the constructive dialogue, the Committee discusses communications under the Optional Protocol, as well as other topical issues such as its report to the General Assembly (if relevant at that particular session), treaty body strengthening, its methods of work, the drafting of any general comments or the preparation of future days of general discussion.

Its concluding observations follow the format of those of other treaty bodies. They begin with the positive aspects of implementation by the State party. They then move onto “factors and difficulties impeding implementation” and “principal areas of concern and recommendations”. The latter are expressed in terms of observations followed by recommendations and follow the format of the report, namely articles 1–4, specific rights, and specific obligations.

To continue with the example of Tunisia, it is interesting to see that the preoccupations of the Committee at the list-of-issues stage appeared to have continued and the responses of the State party were insufficient to allay these concerns. In the concluding observations (CRPD/C/TUN/CO/1), the Committee noted:

9. Follow-up

Once the concluding observations have been adopted, they are posted almost immediately on the OHCHR website (www.ohchr. org).

However, the State party has a key role in the follow-up. According to article 36 (4) of the Convention:

States Parties shall make their reports widely available to the public in their own countries and facilitate access to the suggestions and general recommendations relating to these reports.

So States should at the very least publicize concluding observations. In addition, they should seek ways to follow up on recommendations as they will have to report on implementation four years later.

Bearing these responsibilities in mind, the State might:

Since April 2012, the Committee has developed a follow-up procedure. The Committee identifies up to two or three recommendations for follow-up—subjects that it considers of the utmost importance for improving the situation of persons with disabilities in the country under consideration—and requests the State party to report back to it within 12 months on the measures it has taken to implement these recommendations.

10. The functions of reporting

It is important to remember that reporting is not a one-off event or something that has to be done merely to fulfil an obligation under the Convention. It is a fundamental part of the whole implementation process. So reporting to the Committee is both an end in itself, but also a way to strengthen implementation. Some of the functions of reporting can be summarized as follows: