The State reports of both Yemen and Chad were examined by the Committee against Torture and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights respectively on 3 and 5 November 2009, in the absence of delegations from the State parties. For Chad in particular, 2009 has been an unfeasibly demanding year, being reviewed under the UPR and examined by five UN treaty bodies. 

In the case of Chad, one representative of its Permanent Mission in Geneva attended the three hour session, all the members of the Committee expressed their regret and concern regarding the absence of the Chadian interlocutors. The Chairperson added that no strong explanation for the absence of the State was provided.

Before consideration of the report, Committee Chairperson Mr. Atangana stressed that under rule 62, paragraph 3 of the Committee’s rules of procedure, the delegation's failure to appear doesn't preclude the consideration of the State report. Thus, CESCR based its review on the report and the written replies by the Government of Chad to the list of issues, as well as on complementary sources of information, such as NGO reports.

Mr. Eibe Riedel put forth that the constructive dialogue with the State is an essential element for the work of CESCR. He also pointed out that, in the absence of the country’s delegation, the members of the Committee were forced to rely only on external information, which is detrimental for the State. He further warned that Chad’s review in absentia encourages other States to be absent during examination. Thus, such attitudes shouldn’t be tolerated.

Mr. Azzouz Kerdoun emphasised that the State’s written replies were too general and could not be used as a sole basis for the examination of the State. He also noted that the report did not include sufficient updated statistics and data. Consequently, the members of the Committee had no possibility to request more detailed information on questions of concern. Nevertheless, the members of the Committee unanimously acknowledged Chad's efforts to draft a comprehensive report, which reveals the limited resources available to comply with the Covenant and in some cases provides valuable information with a certain level of frankness.

In the case of Yemen, on 2 November 2009 a representative requested a postponement of the consideration of its report and informed the Committee that a delegation would not be sent, despite the fact that the date for review of the report was set nearly a year ago. Later that day, all but one of the Committee  members decided that it was not going to postpone consideration of the report. During the review, the co-rapporteur for the report of Yemen noted that the initial report of Yemen had been considered in 2003, ten years late, that there had been no replies to communications regarding follow-up to the Committee’s concluding observations on that report (although the second periodic report did undertake to respond to some of those observations), and that there had been no reply from Yemen to the Committee’s list of issues, which was sent to the Government six months ag

One Committee member, Mr Xuexian Wang, expressed concern that proceeding in Yemen’s absence might prevent the Committee from engaging in a dialogue with the State party. Committee Chairperson Mr Claudio Grossman replied there would in fact be a dialogue with the State party, as the Committee would draft provisional observations, send them to Yemen, and allow time for a response before the Committee issued concluding observations at its next session in May 2010. Committee member Ms Felice Gaer later pointed out that there is no provision in the Convention against Torture requiring the Committee to engage in a dialogue with the State party at all, but rather that the Committee considers reports in the presence of State parties as a courtesy.