COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE HEARS FROM SECRETARY-GENERAL’S REPRESENTATIVE AT OPENING OF THIRTY-FIRST SESSION

COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE HEARS FROM SECRETARY-GENERAL’S

REPRESENTATIVE AT OPENING OF THIRTY-FIRST SESSION

(Reissued as received.)

GENEVA, 10 November -- The Committee against Torture opened this morning its thirty-first session by hearing an address from Jane Connors, a Representative of the Secretary-General, and adopting its agenda.

Ms. Connors said that the events since the closure of the last session had been dominated by the bombing of United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad and the tragic and untimely death of 22 United Nations colleagues, including the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello.  In this context, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights considered the treaty body system as a central pillar of the United Nations human rights edifice.

The Secretary-General’s Reform Report of 2002 set out 36 Action points, of which Actions 2 and 3 were of particular relevance to the work of the Committee against Torture, Ms. Connors said.  Action 3 proposed, among other things, that the Committees crafted a more coordinated approach to their activities and that they standardized their varied reporting requirements.  Each State should be allowed to produce a single report summarizing its adherence to the full range of international human rights treaties to which it was a party.

The Committee began the meeting by welcoming Claudio Grossman who replaced a former member and Vice-Chairman of the Committee, Alejandro Gonzalez Poblete, who had passed away.  Mr. Grossman made a solemn declaration in which he promised to perform his duties and exercise his powers as a member of the Committee against Torture honourably, faithfully, impartially and conscientiously.

A Secretariat representative, reviewing the status of the Committee’s workload, said that, in addition to the six country reports to be considered at this session, 16 reports had been received (1 initial report, 1 second periodic report, 8 third periodic reports, and 6 fourth periodic reports).  Some 38 initial reports, 41 second periodic reports, 46 third periodic reports, and 37 fourth periodic reports were overdue, for a total of 162 overdue reports.

During this session, which will conclude on 21 November, the Committee is also scheduled to consider reports from Morocco, Latvia, Lithuania, Yemen and Cameroon.

The Committee will reconvene in public at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 11 November, to begin its consideration of the third periodic report of Colombia.

Address by Jane Connors, Representative of Secretary-General

Jane Connors, Representative of the Secretary-General, said that the events since the closure of the last session had been dominated by the bombing of United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad and the tragic and untimely death of 22 United Nations colleagues, including the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello.  In this context, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights considered the treaty body system as a central pillar of the United Nations human rights edifice.

Ms. Connors said that the Secretary-General’s Reform Report of 2002 set out 36 Action points, of which Actions 2 and 3 were of particular relevance to the work of the Committee against Torture.  As for Action 2, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Group and the Executive Committee on Humanitarian Affairs, had developed a plan of action to improve the integration of human rights into the activities of United Nations agencies at the country level.  Key to this plan, which was presented to the Secretary-General in September, were modalities to enhance cooperation between United Nations agencies and the human rights treaty bodies and special mechanisms.

In response to the challenges presented by delayed reports or non-reporting by States parties to the human rights treaties and the burden reporting to six human rights treaty bodies imposed on States parties, Action 3 of the Report of the Secretary-General proposed, among other things, that the Committees crafted a more coordinated approach to their activities and that they standardized their varied reporting requirements.  Each State should be allowed to produce a single report summarizing its adherence to the full range of international human rights treaties to which it was a party.

In line with the Secretary-General’s proposal and at the request of the Inter-Committee Meeting/Meeting of Chairpersons, the Office of the High Commissioner was currently engaged in the process of preparing proposals for the form and content of an expanded core document, as well as harmonized guidelines on reporting to the individual committees.  It was hoped to be able to work with a number of States parties currently preparing reports in order to refine the proposals in accordance with practical realities faced by reporting States.  The proposals would be submitted to the third Inter-Committee Meeting in June 2004.

Informing the Committee members about the activities of the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Theo van Boven, Ms. Connors said that Mr. van Boven had completed a one-week fact-finding mission to Spain at the invitation of the Government, from 6 to 10 October 2003.  His report would be presented to the forthcoming sixtieth session of the Commission on Human Rights.  This was the only country visit undertaken by the Special Rapporteur during the current year.

One new country had ratified the Convention, Ms. Connors said -- Congo -- bringing the total number of States parties to 134.  Two States parties had made the declaration under articles 21 and 22 of the Convention (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine) and two States, Burundi and Guatemala, had made the declaration under article 22.  Furthermore, Ukraine withdrew its reservation to article 20 of the Convention last September.  Seven countries had made such reservations up to now.

Several States parties had signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture over the last months (21 as of today).  Nevertheless, only two of them, so far, had ratified this instrument (Albania and Malta).

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