Human Rights Committee

Eighty-ninth Session

2450^th Meeting* (AM)

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE HEARS UPDATE ON CASES INVOLVING OPTIONAL PROTOCOL

CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS

 

Need for Media Strategy to Highlight Committees’ Work Also Discussed

The Human Rights Committee heard an update on numerous cases involving the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and also considered several recommendations to strengthen its follow-up activities, including improving media outreach.

The Optional Protocol to the Covenant provides for the confidential consideration of communications from individuals who claim to be victims of a violation of any rights proclaimed in the Covenant.  The Committee can receive no communications if it concerns a State party to the Covenant that is not also a party to the Optional Protocol.  Of the 160 States parties to the Covenant, 109 are party to the Optional Protocol.  At the start of the session, approximately 300 communications were pending.

Introducing the progress report, Special Rapporteur Ivan Shearer, expert from Australia, highlighted 14 cases against the following eight countries: Australia (article 10, 19 24), Belarus (articles 7, 19, 22), Burkina Faso (article 7), Libya (article 12), Poland (article 9), Portugal (article 14), Russian Federation (article 7) and Uzbekistan (articles 7,9,14).

The Committee agreed that discussion remain ongoing in all the cases brought forward, except that of Poland, where the Committee’s recommendation to close the case was accepted, as the remedy was found to be satisfactory.  While experts were generally encouraged with the progress -- with resistance sometimes encountered by the States parties -- they felt it was important to maintain a certain amount of pressure on the States parties.  The Committee Chairman, Rafael Rivas Posada, expert from Colombia, hoped to step up those efforts with the aim of having the States fully discharging their obligations under the Optional Protocol.

Among the cases presented today was that of Burkina Faso.  After the sentencing, trial and death of a political leader there, it was recommended that his widow and children be given official records of the place of burial and compensation for the anguish suffered.  The State party said that the victim had been declared a national hero, thus acknowledging its previous Government’s wrongdoing.  The widow and children did not accept the offered sum of $800,000, however, instead pushing for a public inquiry establishing the circumstances of his death.

In the case of Libya, where article 12 -- freedom of movement -- had been cited, a woman wishing to study abroad had initially not been granted a passport by the Government.  A passport was later issued for a period of two years, rather than the usual five years.  As two years were insufficient to complete her course of study, an expert voiced concern about the possibly “vindictive” nature of the State party’s actions.

Mr. Shearer also introduced the second topic of today, on the Committee’s working methods, for which the experts had before them a conference room paper, dated 15 August 2006 (document CCPR/C/88/CRP.1).  It was a background paper containing recommendations of the intersessional working group on strengthening follow-up activities under the Optional Protocol and concluding observations.  Accompanying the report were preliminary proposals, also in the form of a conference room paper, by Mr. Shearer (document CCPR/C/89/CRP.1), dated 28 March 2007.

Dominating the ensuing discussion was the need to elaborate a media strategy to ensure that populations, particularly in the developing world, were informed about the work of the Committee and other international human rights bodies.  Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati, expert from India, was concerned that the Committee’s work had “not trickled down” to the large masses of people.  While he did not think the Committee as a whole could reach the 70 per cent of the world’s population living in developing countries, he thought that perhaps each expert could approach the television and radio media in their areas and disseminate the information.  Some years ago, he had organized the showing of 12 short films on women’s human rights, and those had had a tremendous effect, he said.

Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo, expert from Benin, agreed, saying that the Committee’s work was certainly not known in sub-Saharan Africa.  He had recently been asked about the Committee’s position on the situation in the Sudan.  Few were aware of the Committee’s competence in that regard.  It was very important for a distinction to be made between the work of the Human Rights Council and the Human Rights Committee.  At the end of the Committee’s session, it would be very important to have a press release circulated widely to the mass media in all countries so that people worldwide knew what the Committee had done for a month.

Similarly, the expert from Egypt, Ahmed T. Khalil, said that, when Egypt had been “taken up” by the Committee, “almost next to nothing made it to the people”.  That had been very disheartening.  If the Committee truly wished to spread the so-called “culture of human rights”, then it should set up a strategy in the service of the cause of human rights.  In so doing, it was imperative that it take into account the prevailing environment in “third-world” countries like his own.

Christine Chanet, expert from France, stressed that a final press conference was very important, and she was disappointed that there would not be one at the close of the session.  The Committee was wrong not to have one; it had to create interest in the press in its work in New York, just as it had done in Geneva.

The Committee Chairman, Mr. Posada, said there was no doubt that Committee members were very interested in press relations and in publicizing the Committee’s work, as those issues had dominated the discussion of working methods today.  That had pointed to the “need to devote more time at the right time” solely to questions of publicity and relations with the media, he said.  Mr. Shearer’s recommendations were only a beginning, he stressed.

The Human Rights Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. on Friday, 30 March to conclude its current session.

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*     The 2441^st through 2449^th Meetings were not covered.

For information media • not an official record