International Covenant on Civil

 and Political Rights

29^th Meeting (AM)

States Parties to International Civil, political rights

 

covenant elect nine members to monitoring body

 

The twenty-third meeting of States parties to the international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights this morning elected nine members of the Human Rights Committee to replace those whose terms are due to expire on 31 December 2004. 

Members elected today were:  Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo (Benin); Edwin Ramon Johnson Lopez (Ecuador); Ahmed Tawfik Khalil (Egypt); Rajsoomer Lallah (Mauritius); Michael O’Flaherty (Ireland); Rafel Rivas Posada (Colombia); Nigel Rodley (United Kingdom); Ivan Shearer (Australia); and Margareta Wadstein (Sweden).  The terms of office of newly-elected members are to last through 31 December 2008.

The remaining members, who will continue to serve on the Committee until the end of 2006, are Abdelfattah Amor (Tunisia), Nisuke Ando (Japan), Prafullachandra N. Bhagwati (India), Alfredo Castillero Hoyos (Panama), Christine Chanet (France), Walter Kalin (Switzerland), Hipolito Solari-Yrigoyen (Argentina), Ruth Wedgwood (United States) and Roman Wieruszewski (Poland).

Part of the United Nations human rights machinery, the Covenant was adopted in December 1966 and came into force in March 1976.  The implementation of this instrument and its Protocols in the territory of States parties is monitored by the Human Rights Committee, which was established for that purpose.  That body is composed of 18 independent experts who are persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights.  The Committee convenes three times a year, normally in March at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and in July and November at the United Nations Office in Geneva.

Opening the meeting, Secretary-General’s representative, Graig Mokhiber, informed its participants of the developments since States parties’ last regular meeting in September 2002.  (At the beginning of 2003, the States parties also held a meeting to fill a vacancy on the Committee). 

He said that Djibouti, Turkey, Timor-Leste and Swaziland had since become parties to the Covenant, bringing the total number to 152.  Djibouti and South Africa had also become parties to the Optional Protocol to the Covenant, bringing the total in that respect to 104.  [The Optional Protocol authorizes the Committee to consider complaints about violations of the rights set forth in the Covenant from individuals under its States parties’ jurisdiction.]  Djibouti, Paraguay, Estonia, Timor-Leste and the CzechRepublic had become parties to the Second Optional Protocol, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, thus bringing the number of States parties to that instrument to 53.

Since the autumn of 2002, the Human Rights Committee had paid consistent attention to the Secretary-General’s call for streamlining and reform of the treaty reporting system, he added.  Its chair and representatives had participated in the consultative process and in the second and third inter-committee meetings held in June 2003 and June 2004.  In October, the Committee plenary was scheduled to discuss the outcome of the third inter-committee meeting, in particular on the issue of draft guidelines for an expanded or common core document.  Also since the last meeting, various decisions had been made on the working methods of the Committee.  Institution of country report task forces had proven to be a helpful tool in the examination of initial and periodic reports.  

He said the procedure for follow-up to the Committee’s concluding observations, established in 2001, had continued to develop, and the Committee was expected to discuss its experience in that regard during its third meeting with States parties on 28 October 2004.  The Committee’s caseload under the first Optional Protocol to the Covenant had continued to grow, with some 300 complaints currently pending. 

To address the growing backlog in pending cases, the Committee had extended its seventy-eighth session in August 2003 and converted the meeting of the Working Group on Communications of the eighty-first session last July into a week of plenary meetings, he said.  Through those measures, the Committee had managed to avoid a further increase in the backlog.  Also in July, the Committee had adopted a decision on working methods under the Optional Protocol, which had been designed to expedite the processing of complaints and enable the Committee to make determinations on the admissibility and merits of complaints in the future.

Also today, the Meeting elected Fayssal Mekhdad (Syria) as its Chairman and Cheick Sidi Diarra (Mali), Gian Nicola Filippi Balestra (San Marino), Fermin Toro Jimenez (Venezuela) and Ondina Blokar (Slovenia) as its Vice-Chairpersons.  It also adopted its agenda.

The nine members were elected through a secret ballot, out of a list of 11 candidates, as follows:

Voting

Number of ballots:                  146

Number of invalid ballots:            0

Number of valid ballots:            146

Abstentions:                          0

Number of votes:                    146

Required majority:                   74

Franco Depasquale (Malta)           103

Osman El Hajje (Lebanon)             90

Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo (Benin)     119

Edwin Ramon Johnson Lopez (Ecuador)115

Ahmed Tawfik Khalil (Egypt)         127

Rajsoomer Lallah (Mauritius)        107

Michael O’Flaherty (Ireland)        113

Rafael Rivas Posada (Colombia)      119

Nigel Rodley (United Kingdom)       122

Ivan Shearer (Australia)            119

Margareta Wadstein (Sweden)         125

The curricula vitae of the candidates are available in document CCPR/SP/62.