COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION OPENS SEVENTY-FOURTH SESSION, ADOPTS AGENDA AND PROGRAMME OF WORK

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination this morning opened its seventy-fourth session, hearing an address by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, then adopting its agenda and programme of work.

Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the Committee was one of the pillars of the United Nations system in the protection of human rights and made an important contribution to the promotion of the principle of equality in the enjoyment of human rights without discrimination. On 10 December 2008, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the General Assembly adopted by consensus the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which established a procedure for individual complaints, inquiries and inter-State communications concerning violations of the rights enshrined in the Covenant. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had been established, and its future work would of course to a large extent focus on discrimination issues, which should give rise to a fruitful collaboration with the Committee.

Ms. Pillay said the eighth Inter-Committee Meeting was held in December, and was dedicated exclusively to the issue of harmonisation of working methods, and focused on revised treaty-specific guidelines, follow-up to concluding observations, and the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council. With regards to follow-up to concluding observations, the meeting proposed the establishment of a working group or task force with the specific objective of identifying best practices and possible areas of harmonisation. An overall analysis would be made on the basis of the findings of each Committee. At the same time, the Office would aim to enhance its own efforts to facilitate the implementation of treaty body recommendations at the national level, and to promote awareness and understanding of the treaty body system. In relation to the Universal Periodic Review, the meeting discussed ways and means to develop effective cooperation between treaty bodies and the Human Rights Council.

The Committee had a busy session ahead of it, the High Commissioner said. It would not only examine the periodic reports of nine State Parties, but also review the implementation of the Convention in some of those State Parties whose reports were seriously overdue. It would also consider a number of situations under the Committee's early warning and urgent action procedure. In addition, it would continue its discussions on a draft recommendation on the subject of "special measures", which, under the Convention, States could put in place to promote disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups within their territories. In light of this busy schedule and the backlog of reports, the approval by the General Assembly of the Committee's request to extend its two annual sessions by one week each in the next biennium was to be welcomed. Ms. Pillay concluded by pledging the full support and commitment of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in facilitating the task of the Committee in every way possible to ensure the smooth completion of its heavy workload.


With regards to the Durban Review Conference, she added that there had been a lot of talk about withdrawal by States and non-participation of the United States, and she was very pleased to tell the Committee that she had received a phone call from the United States Ambassador who had said that President Barack Obama was sending a team to assess whether the United States would participate. Ms. Pillay would be meeting with that team later today.


The next meeting of the Committee will be at 3 p.m. this afternoon, when it is scheduled to take up the nineteenth periodic report of Tunisia (CERD/C/TUN/19).



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