International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights

26^th Meeting (AM)

STATES PARTIES TO COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS ELECTS REPLACEMENT

TO SERVE OUT TERM ON HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE FOLLOWING MEMBER’S RESIGNATION

The twenty-sixth Meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights today elected Helen Keller (Switzerland) to the Human Rights Committee, the treaty’s monitoring body, through 31 December 2010.

Elected by acclamation, Ms. Keller will immediately begin serving her term on the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Covenant by its State parties.  She will be serving out the term of Walter Kälin ( Switzerland), a long-time Committee member who resigned earlier in the year.

The Covenant deals with rights concerning freedom of movement; equality before the law; fair trial and presumption of innocence; freedom of thought, conscience and religion; and peaceful assembly, among others.  It prohibits torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, and arbitrary interference with privacy.

States parties to the Covenant are required by article 40 to submit an initial report and periodic reports thereafter, on measures adopted to give effect to the instrument’s provisions.  The Human Rights Committee considers those reports and issues observations.  It also considers communications submitted under the Optional Protocol by individuals claiming that their rights have been violated without domestic redress.

In other business, the meeting elected, by acclamation, Simona Mirela Miculescu ( Romania) as its Chairperson, as well as Hossein Gharibi ( Iran) and Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad ( Sudan) as its Vice-Chairs.  Also elected Vice-Chair was Janine Elizabeth Coye-Felson ( Belize), who was nominated by Barbados on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States.

Finally, Ngonlardje Mbaidjol, Chief of the New York Office of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reminded the Meeting that the States parties would gather again in New York on 4 September to elect nine members to replace those whose terms of office are due to end on 31 December.  States parties would receive an update at that time on developments regarding the Covenant and the work of its monitoring Committee.

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For information media • not an official record