HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE ADOPTS LIST OF COUNTRIES FOR FUTURE CONSIDERATION
Press Release
HR/CT/586
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE ADOPTS LIST OF COUNTRIES FOR FUTURE CONSIDERATION
20000727(Reissued as received.)
GENEVA, 27 July (UN Information Service) -- The Human Rights Committee this afternoon approved the composition of two working groups for the preparation of lists of issues to be taken up in connection with the consideration of the periodic reports of nine States parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In a pre-sessional meeting to be held in October in Geneva, one working group, composed of members of the Committee, will prepare lists of questions on the reports of Croatia, Yugoslavia, the Dominican Republic, Syria and Venezuela. The list, once approved by the Committee, will be sent to the respective Governments in advance before their presentation of the reports. In the March 2001 pre-sessional meeting, to be held in New York, the second working group will prepare lists of issues on the reports of the Czech Republic, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Netherlands and Netherlands Antilles, and Guatemala.
Also this afternoon, the Committee discussed issues pertaining to overdue reports and decided to send a note reminding the Government of Viet Nam of its obligations to submit periodic reports to the Committee on its compliance with the provisions of the Covenant. In its annual report adopted at the beginning of this week, the Committee stressed that it was faced not only with a problem of overdue reports, but also with a backlog of reports already received but not yet examined. That backlog had continued to grow despite the Committee's new guidelines and significant other improvements in its working methods.
The Committee also briefly discussed a working paper prepared by another of its working groups concerning States reports. The paper suggested a series of measures to be taken by the Committee regarding overdue reports.
The Committee is scheduled to meet in public at 9 a.m. on Friday, 28 July, to finalize the work of its three-week session.
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