International Service for Human Rights

The Inter-Committee Meeting Working Group on Follow-Up to Concluding Observations, Inquiries, Visits and Decisions (ICM) took place in Geneva from 12 to 14 January, 2011. The meeting was the first under the new format of the ICM whereby one of its annual meetings will take the form of a thematic working group. The theme for this working group provided an opportunity for treaty body members to share experiences on follow-up and consider ways of enhancing the effectiveness of the treaty body system in this respect.

The 18 cumulative hours of meetings were largely conducted without non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Indeed, NGOs were able to participate in only one of the meetings held - all other sessions were classified as private. NGOs expressed their concern regarding this lack of access during their open session with the working group on 13 January, and urged the working group to grant NGOs full access to all sessions.

The most widely discussed proposals in the open meeting derived from a joint submission by two NGOs. Their plan to improve the treaty body follow-up process is based on a three-point structure that would see the use of country rapporteurs and follow-up rapporteurs (whose roles would be diverse and largely independent of one another), combined with a newly-created ‘follow-up chamber’. These proposals were widely endorsed by other NGOs present. The proposals envisaged increased responsibility for country rapporteurs which, it was claimed, would allow those rapporteurs to better target relevant specific issues by raising State, UN and public awareness on specific issues affecting States on a more long-term basis. The ‘follow-up chamber’ would increase coordination between treaty bodies and allow for a more efficient pooling of information ahead of the UPR of States and future treaty body sessions by ‘collecting, analysing and evaluating follow-up information on a country basis rather than a thematic basis as practised in the individual treaty bodies’.[1]

Treaty body members expressed appreciation to the NGOs present for their enthusiastic participation and their recommendations.[2] Nevertheless, some recommendations were met with scepticism by members. Addressing suggestions that country rapporteurs become more involved in the follow-up process, potentially through an increase in country visits, Ms Gaer (CAT) reminded NGOs that country visits by treaty bodies had a ‘sorry history’. This position was shared by Mr Krappmann (CRC), who noted that a previous follow-up process was halted in 1993 due to a lack of success. Proposals to establish a harmonised follow-up chamber were also met with opposition by certain experts, including the chairperson of the meeting, Ms Lee (CRC) , who felt that it was important to look beyond persistent suggestions to harmonise treaty bodies, all of which had failed to materialise in the past.

Responding to these comments, the NGOs making the submission clarified that they did not wish to create a unified treaty body in the sense alluded to by some experts. Instead, the chamber was envisaged as an additional tool that could help pool information from all the treaty bodies in a complementary fashion, and not undermine the work of the individual bodies. Considering the wealth of areas that had to be covered, the meeting was very short. NGOs were given only 10 minutes to respond to members’ comments, exacerbating the impact of their lack of access to other sessions of the working group. The 12^th meeting of the ICM in its usual format will take place in Geneva from 27 to 29 June followed by the 23^rd meeting of Chairpersons from 30 June to 1 July.