Human Right Committee Opens One Hundred and Forty-Third Session

Committee Elects New Chairperson and Bureau, Five New Members Make Solemn Declaration

The Human Right Committee this morning opened its one hundred and forty-third session, during which it will examine the reports of Albania, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Mongolia, Montenegro and Zimbabwe on their implementation of the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  The Committee elected a new Chairperson and Bureau, and five new members made their solemn declaration. 

In her opening remarks, Wan-Hea Lee, Chief of the Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Representative of the Secretary-General, said despite the liquidity situation currently facing the United Nations, the first sessions of all the treaty bodies this year had or were going to take place, thereby allowing the important work undertaken by Committees, including this one, to proceed. 

The Office of the High Commissioner and the United Nations had and would continue to do their utmost to ensure that the Committee’s work could proceed to the maximum extent possible.

Ms. Lee said they were living in exceptional times, marked by profound global challenges that tested the resilience of the international legal order.  The international system was going through a tectonic shift, and the human rights edifice that had been built up so painstakingly over decades had never been under so much strain.  The United Nations system, including the Committee, bore a shared responsibility to safeguard and reinforce these hard-fought achievements. Now, more than ever, collective action was necessary to defend the universality of human rights, preserve the integrity of international law, and ensure that it remained a robust shield against further regression.

In its current session, Ms. Lee said, the Human Rights Council would hold interactive dialogues with the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief, on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, and on the situation of human rights defenders. Last Tuesday, the Council held its biannual high-level panel discussion on the question of the death penalty, which focused on the contribution of the judiciary towards the abolition of the death penalty.  As of today, 113 countries had abolished the death penalty completely, and the global South was now leading the abolition movement. 

Next Wednesday morning, 5 March, the Council would hold a panel discussion on early warning and genocide prevention.  The Council encouraged States to intensify conflict risk analysis to assess the risks of the perpetration of genocide and to identify situations where preventive measures might be necessary.  Ms. Lee said the work of the Committee needed to be considered a vital component of such risk assessment.

Last year was particularly challenging, Ms. Lee stated.  In addition to chronic resource constraints, the liquidity crisis continued to hamper the planning and implementation of the Committee’s work - a point that the Chairs communicated forcefully during their meetings with Member States and other interlocutors in New York.  The Office of the High Commissioner was doing its utmost to ensure that the treaty bodies could implement their mandates, including by highlighting the direct impact that resource limitations had on human rights protection on the ground.  Nevertheless, all indications pointed to a continuation of the difficult liquidity situation for the foreseeable future.

Ms. Lee said the treaty body strengthening process remained active.  It reached a key moment with the adoption last December of the biennial resolution on the treaty body system by the General Assembly. The resolution invited the treaty bodies and the Office of the High Commissioner to continue to work on coordination and predictability in the reporting process with the aim of achieving a regularised schedule for reporting, and to increase efforts to further use digital technologies.  However, the biennial resolution did not endorse certain detailed proposals, such as the one for an eight-year predictable schedule of reviews.

On Human Rights Day last year, Ms. Lee said, the Geneva Human Rights Platform organised an informal meeting of the Chairs and focal points on working methods, which explored the latest developments in the treaty body system and sought to improve the harmonisation of procedures.  The Chairs and focal points also had the opportunity to interact with the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures Mandate Holders, discussing independence and actual or potential conflict of interest of experts, and an “all mechanisms” approach to the many challenges the human rights mechanisms were facing.  The High Commissioner’s Office would continue to work alongside the Chairs and all treaty body experts to strengthen the system.

Ms. Lee said that the Committee had a busy agenda ahead of it, including six States party reviews, the consideration and adoption of eight lists of issues and lists of issues prior to reporting, as well as several individual communications under the Optional Protocol.  It would also hold briefings with various stakeholders.  She closed by wishing the Committee a successful and productive session.

During the meeting, Changrok Soh (Republic of Korea) was elected as Chair of the Committee, and Wafaa Ashraf Moharram Bassim (Egypt), Hernán Quezada Cabrera (Chile), and Hélène Tigroudja (France) were elected as Vice-Chairs.  The election of a Committee Rapporteur was deferred.  Committee members expressed their support for the newly elected Chair and Bureau members and to the outgoing members.

Mr. Soh expressed thanks for the Committee’s support and commended the work of former Chair Tania María Abdo Rocholl (Paraguay).  He said human rights were at the heart of his work, and he took on his duties with a strong sense of dedication.  The evolving global landscape and increasing financial pressures on the treaty body system called for increased collaboration.  The treaty bodies needed to leverage new methodologies and technologies to address their challenges.  Mr. Soh said he would do his utmost to deliver on the Committee’s mandate. Through collaboration with various stakeholders, he would work to ensure that the Committee could uphold the civil and political rights of persons worldwide.

Ms. Abdo Rocholl took the floor to congratulate Mr. Soh and all elected bureau measures, who she expected would take the Committee far in difficult times.  During her tenure, she said, the Committee had held 41 dialogues with States parties, issued 12 lists of issues and 19 lists of issues prior to reporting, analysed five reports on implementation of concluding observations, adopted 610 decisions on individual communications, and delivered three follow-up reports on communications.  It had also implemented changes to finalise lists of issues at an earlier stage and improve the communications review procedure, time management in State party reviews, and document production.  The Committee had worked in a collaborative, harmonious environment, which allowed for the improvement of its work.  Ms. Abdo Rocholl expressed thanks to all who supported her throughout her two-year tenure as Chair.

The Committee then adopted its agenda and programme of work for the session.

Laurence R. Helfer, Committee Expert and Chair of the Working Group on individual communications, presented the report on the Working Group’s activities for the one hundred and forty-third session.  He said the Working Group had a very busy session and had extremely rich and interesting discussions.  The cases examined were submitted between 2016 and 2023 and covered 13 States parties from different regions, as well as different themes ranging from arbitrary deprivation of the right to life to forced pregnancy and forced maternity, non-refoulement, voting rights, forced displacement of indigenous communities, arbitrary detention, right to freedom of religion and belief, and right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.  Regarding the 20 drafts examined and 44 communications covered, the Working Group submitted to the plenary for its consideration four inadmissibility proposals, one proposal of no violation; 36 proposals of violations; and two proposals with two options.  The report was adopted.

New members elected to the Committee made their solemn declaration.  They are Carlos Ramón Fernández Liesa (Spain), Konstantin Korkelia (Georgia), Dalia Leinarte (Lithuania), Akmal Kholmatovich Saidov (Uzbekistan), and Ivan Šimonovic (Croatia).  Ms. Abdo Rocholl, Mr. Soh and Ms. Bassim, as well as Mahjoub El Haiba (Morocco) and Imeru Tamerat Yigezu (Ethiopia), were re-elected to the Committee.

The Human Rights Committee’s one hundred and forty-third session is being held from 3 to 28 March 2025.  All the documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, can be found on the session’s webpage.  Meeting summary releases can be found here.  The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings can be accessed via the UN Web TV webpage.

The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 4 March, to begin its consideration of the second periodic report of Montenegro (CCPR/C/MNE/2).

Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the media; 
not an official record. English and French versions of our releases are different as they are the product of two separate coverage teams that work independently.

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