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The 11th Inter-Committee Meeting of UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies (ICM) was held at Palais Wilson, Geneva, from 28 to 30 June 2010. In her opening statement, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Kyung-wha Kang, drew attention to the way in which rapid growth of the treaty body system and related structural challenges were beginning to 'overwhelm' the whole system, and the associated need to rationalise the 'unwieldy' reporting process.
The key area of discussion was the new optional reporting procedure, known as the 'list of issues prior to reporting', adopted by the Committee against Torture (CAT), and the Human Rights Committee (HRC). The benefits of the new procedure were largely acknowledged by the Committee members to be the facilitation of more focused reports and therefore of more targeted concluding observations.
Ms Keller (HRC) drew attention to the need to ensure that the procedure is flexible enough that new issues not included in the list of issues can be raised during the review of the State party. Ms Gaer (CAT) cautioned the ICM against over-reliance on CAT's experience, given that it has not yet to review the first State under the new reporting procedure, and Mr Grossman (CAT) noted the additional burden in terms of resources and workload that the list of issues prior to reporting places on the treaty bodies. Ms Lee (CRC, and chair of the ICM) proposed that CAT report back to the ICM in January 2011 to be followed by further discussion at the ICM in June 2011.
The difficulties experienced by treaty bodies in having their documents translated on time, or indeed at all, was also a key point of discussion during the meeting. It was acknowledged that the situation has been deteriorating in recent years and many Committee members underscored the obstruction that the lack of translation into UN working languages had caused them. In relation to measures to overcome the translation pressures, there were extensive discussions about applying length limits to State parties' reports. There was much deliberation about the appropriateness of restricting page limits and the inflexibility this could create in situations of crisis, where the State may need to provide additional information. There was also discussion about the desirability of having a system where excessively lengthy State reports were returned to be shortened, and the implications this would have in terms of delaying the reporting process even further. The Chair concluded that as a working principle all treaty bodies should value brevity as far as this is consistent with quality and the proper fulfilment of their mandates.
On the morning of 29 June, the ICM held an interactive dialogue with States which revealed widespread support for the CAT optional reporting procedure. Finland stated that it had submitted its report to CAT under the new procedure and the initial experience had been positive, facilitating national dialogue and enabling more focused work. However Pakistan expressed concern that it is premature to evaluate the effectiveness of the new optional reporting system and Switzerland requested a more substantive reflection on the list of issues. Other points of interest during the dialogue included support for joint general comments from the treaty bodies (Brazil, Egypt, Finland, Switzerland) coupled with caution against potential confusion for States not signed up to all Conventions (USA); encouragement for the treaty bodies to get more involved with the UPR (Chile) in particular when compiling the list of issues (Japan) or by consulting UPR recommendations when drawing up concluding observations (Austria, Canada) countered by reservations from South Africa that closer association between the Human Rights Council and the treaty bodies would compromise the non-politicisation of the treaty bodies, and from Pakistan that it was premature to link the two processes.
Ms Rosslyn Noonan, Chair of the International Coordinating Committee of NHRIs (ICC), briefed the ICM about proposals from national human rights institutions. She spoke in support of reduced length of documentation, circulation of lists of issues prior to reporting, increased cross-referencing of recommendations from the different treaty bodies, and greater uniformity of working methods across treaty bodies, as the variations that currently exist are a significant impediment to NHRI interaction with the mechanisms.
Other points of discussion included the need for documents to be translated to meet the needs of disabled persons such as braille for the blind (Mr Al Tarawneh of CRPD), the desirability of moving away from the negative terminology of 'shadow reports' in preference for 'civil society' or 'parallel reports' (Mr Grossman, Mr Tarawneh), the desirability of holding future ICM meetings outside Geneva and New York in developing countries (Mr El-Borai from CMW and endorsed by the Chair of the ICC), the legitimacy and feasibility of cross-referencing recommendations and jurisprudence across treaty bodies (Ms Gaer, Mr Romero of CESCR and Mr Grossman), and concern that the General Assembly appears to be selective in its endorsement of General Comments by the Treaty Bodies (Mr Iwasawa of the HRC, Mr Grossman and Mr Romero). |
