COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN OPENS SEVENTY-FIRST SESSION
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women this morning opened its seventy-first session, hearing a statement by Ibrahim Salama, Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting the agenda and programme of work for the session.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Salama paid tribute to the Committee’s outgoing members: Ayse Feride Acar, Magalys Arocha Dominguez, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Yoko Hayashi, Lilian Hofmeister, Ismat Jahan, and Patricia Schulz.
He then highlighted some of the Committee’s emblematic achievements, including the landmark decision of 17 July 2018 by the Spanish Supreme Court in the case of González Carreño and Rascón Gonzalez v. Spain, which had recognized the Committee’s views as binding on Spain, and which was the epitome of the direct impact of treaty body’s work. It would, Mr. Salama stressed, certainly provide authoritative guidance in other jurisdictions regarding the enforceability of treaty bodies’ decisions. In this vein, Mr. Salama also noted the judgement delivered on 7 June 2018 by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in a case involving the restrictive access to abortion services in Northern Ireland, and underlined that the General Recommendation No. 35 on gender-based violence against women, which had evolved the prohibition of gender-based violence against women into a principle of customary international law, would forever be etched in history books as one of the Committee’s most revered jurisprudential contributions.
Mr. Salama underlined the Committee’s effort to increase the accountability armoury on violations perpetrated against Rohingya women and girls, noting in particular the request to Myanmar to submit an exceptional report by the end of May 2018, including on cases of sexual violence, including rape, against Rohingya women and girls perpetrated by State security forces. The Committee would hold an informal meeting with States parties on 8 November, during which it would discuss the Sustainable Development Goal indicators and some of the main challenges that the Committee faced as it sought to implement the General Assembly resolution 68/268, including the lack of resources for mandated work, particularly with regard to the individual communications and inquiry procedures. In conclusion, Mr. Salama expressed hope that with the 2020 treaty body review process, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Committee would find durable solutions to the institutional and other challenges that the treaty body system continued to encounter.
In the ensuing discussion, the Committee Experts warned of the risk of retrogression in international law and multilateralism, noting that the entire United Nations system had to mobilize in the face of the risk to the protection of women’s rights with female leadership. The recent decision of the Spanish Supreme Court was a breakthrough in the protection of women’s rights, they underscored.
Dalia Leinarte, Committee Chairperson, said that since the last session, the number of States parties having ratified or acceded to the Convention had remained at 189, while the number of States parties having accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1, of the Convention concerning the Committee’s meeting time had increased from 72 to 74 after Paraguay and Malaysia had accepted the amendment. A total of 126 States parties to the Convention were currently required to accept the amendment in order to bring it into force. The number of States parties to the Optional Protocol had remained at 109.
The Committee this morning adopted the provisional agenda and organization of work for the seventy-first session, and heard reports on the status of the follow-up reports and on the pre-session working group, as well as updates on the activities by Committee Experts in the intersessional period.
The seventy-first session of the Committee will be held from 22 October to 9 November 2018, during which it will review reports of Nepal, the Republic of the Congo, Bahamas, Samoa, Mauritius, Tajikistan, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. All the documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, can be found on the session’s webpage.
The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings can be accessed via the following link: http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/.
The Committee will reconvene in public today at 3 p.m. to meet with representatives of non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions from Nepal, the Republic of the Congo, Bahamas, and Samoa, whose reports it will review this week.
Opening Statement
IBRAHIM SALAMA, Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, paid tribute to the outgoing members of the Committee, namely Ayse Feride Acar, Magalys Arocha Dominguez, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Yoko Hayashi, Lilian Hofmeister, Ismat Jahan, and Patricia Schulz. Mr. Salama highlighted some of the emblematic achievements made by those serving on the Committee. First, under the individual communications procedure, the international community had witnessed a landmark decision of 17 July 2018 by the Spanish Supreme Court in relation to the implementation of the Committee’s decision in the case of González Carreño and Rascón González v. Spain, thus recognizing the views of the Committee as binding on the Spanish State authorities. That judgment was the epitome of the direct impact of treaty body’s work, and it would certainly provide authoritative guidance in other jurisdictions regarding the enforceability of treaty bodies’ decisions, Mr. Salama stressed. Under the State party review, the Committee’s had not only remarkably improved its working methods but had also made notable contributions that were often undocumented. Such were the recent remarks by the head of delegation of New Zealand, which clearly demonstrated the value and utility of the Committee’s work in gauging the progress of State parties in implementing their obligations under the Convention. Third, under the inquiries procedure, Mr. Salama reminded that on 7 June 2018 the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom had delivered its judgment in a case involving the restrictive access to abortion services in Northern Ireland. Fourth, the enunciation in General Recommendation No. 35 on gender-based violence against women that the prohibition of gender-based violence against women had evolved into a principle of customary international law would forever be etched in history books as one of the Committee’s most revered jurisprudential contributions. Similarly, the Committee had left an indelible mark in global discourse when it had contributed to the issuing of the first interpretative guidance on disaster risk reduction and climate change by a United Nations human rights treaty body.
Concerning recent developments in the United Nations system and the resolutions adopted by the Human Rights Council during its 39th session, and in the light of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC approved by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change on 6 October 2018, Mr. Salama underlined that the Committee’s continued role in guarding against the excesses of State parties in order to protect women and girls against the adverse impacts of climate change was pivotal. In this sense, the Committee should continue to ensure that States followed its guidance in General Recommendation No. 37 on gender-related dimensions of disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change, which specifically prescribed measures on how a consistent and effective approach in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change could be pursued.
In an effort to increase the accountability armoury on violations perpetrated against Rohingya women and girls, the Committee had requested the Government of Myanmar to submit an exceptional report by the end of May 2018. Specifically, the Committee had requested Myanmar to provide information of cases of sexual violence, including rape, against Rohingya women and girls perpetrated by State security forces. While the Committee continued to pursue efforts to engage with the Government of Myanmar on those issues, the report of the Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar had issued a shocking report about a military-led campaign to commit some of the gravest crimes against Rohingya women and girls, including sexual violence. In light of that report, the Human Rights Council had adopted a resolution establishing an independent mechanism to “collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011”, Mr. Salama said. Moreover, on 6 September 2018, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court had issued a ruling in which it had opined that it might exercise jurisdiction over the deportation of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh. On 27 September 2018, the Human Rights Council had adopted a resolution on preventable maternal mortality and morbidity and human rights in humanitarian settings, which urged States to eliminate preventable maternal mortality, and to respect, protect and fulfil sexual and reproductive health rights. The Council had also adopted a resolution on the safety of journalists, on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.
Turning to the Secretary-General’s annual report on cooperation with the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms in the field of human rights, Mr. Salama reminded that women reported particular barriers and violence, threats of rape, online smear campaigns, physical searches, and humiliating and degrading treatment. He also reminded that the Committee had adopted during its last session a rapporteur and an alternate rapporteur on intimidation and reprisals, and that it had endorsed the guidelines against intimidation or reprisals (the San José Guidelines) adopted at the twenty-seventh meeting of Chairs of the United Nations human rights treaty bodies. On 14 September 2018, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights had presented, for the consideration of the Human Rights Council, the High Commissioner’s report on draft guidelines on the effective implementation of the right to participate in public affairs. The guidelines made practical recommendations on ensuring women’s participation in public affairs in order to create and maintain a safe and enabling environment that was conducive to the exercise of the right to participate in public affairs. The draft guidelines required States to take proactive measures to strengthen the representation and equal participation of women and groups that were discriminated against in electoral process. The draft guidelines also recommended that States adopt temporary special measures to increase the participation of women, including through training programmes to build their capacity to be candidates, and adjustments to campaign finance regulations that levelled the field for women candidates.
Finally, Mr. Salama recalled that on 8 November 2018, the Committee would hold an informal meeting with States parties to discuss the Sustainable Development Goal indicators and some of the main challenges that the Committee faced as it sought to implement the General Assembly resolution 68/268. The meeting presented an opportunity to highlight the lack of resources for mandated work, particularly with regard to the individual communications and inquiry procedures. Mr. Salama said that he fully shared the Committee Members’ sentiments that while the treaty body strengthening outcome had provided welcome new resources, staff support had lagged behind the exponential growth of the mandated work. Nevertheless, he remained hopeful that with the 2020 treaty body review process, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Committee would find durable solutions to the institutional and other challenges that the treaty body system continued to encounter.
Discussion
The Committee Experts warned of the risk of retrogression in international law and multilateralism, noting that the entire United Nations system had to mobilize in the face of the risk to the protection of women’s rights with female leadership. They underscored that the recent decision of the Spanish Supreme Court (González Carreño and Rascón González v. Spain) was a breakthrough in the protection of women’s rights, and they thanked Mr. Salama for having highlighted it. The Committee had been struggling with the analysis of the 2020 review of the treaty bodies, and the summary of the achievements of the Committee by Mr. Salama was useful in that regard.
IBRAHIM SALAMA, Chief of the Human Rights Treaties Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, agreed that the mobilization of the entire United Nations system would be necessary to achieve most gain in the fight against retrogression in the protection of women’s rights, adding that the profile of the new High Commissioner would be conducive for a dialogue with the Committee in that sense. Mr. Salama noted that the González Carreño and Rascón González v. Spain would have a two-fold effect: it would elevate the outputs of the treaty bodies, and it would give hope to other victims. As for the compilation of the Committee’s achievements, he said that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights struggled with resources.
Adoption of the Agenda and Organization of Work and the Report of the Chairperson
The Committee then adopted the agenda and programme of work for the seventy-first session.
DALIA LEINARTE, Committee Chairperson, paid tribute to the outgoing members of the Committee, noting that the Committee would continue to count on their expertise as it deepened its engagement with the international community on women’s rights. Ms. Leinarte informed that since the last session, the number of States parties having ratified or acceded to the Convention had remained at 189. The number of States parties having accepted the amendment to article 20, paragraph 1, of the Convention concerning the Committee’s meeting time had increased from 72 to 74 after Paraguay and Malaysia had accepted the amendment. A total of 126 States parties to the Convention were currently required to accept the amendment in order to bring it into force. The number of States parties to the Optional Protocol had remained at 109. Three States parties had submitted their periodic reports since the beginning of the last session, namely Iraq, Lithuania, and Pakistan, while 22 States parties had indicated their preference for the simplified reporting procedure. Of those, 12 States parties qualified to be reviewed under that procedure, said the Chair, proceeding to inform the Committee about her intersessional activities.
Committee Experts provided an update on their respective activities during the intersessional period.
Pre-Sessional Working Group and the Follow-Up
PATRICIA SCHULZ, Committee Expert, said that the pre-sessional working group for the seventy-first session had met from 12 to 16 March 2018 in Geneva, and that it had prepared lists of issues and questions with regard to the reports of Bahamas, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, the Republic of the Congo, Samoa, and Tajikistan. In preparing the lists of issues and questions, the pre-sessional working group had paid particular attention to States parties’ follow-up to the Committee’s previous concluding observations, concluded Ms. Schulz.
HILARY GBEDEMAH, Committee Expert and Rapporteur on the Follow-up Procedure, briefed the Committee about the status of the follow-up reports received in response to the Committee’s concluding observations. At the end of the seventieth session, follow-up letters outlining the outcome of assessments of follow-up reports had been sent to Czechia, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Slovakia, Sweden, Uganda, Venezuela, and Viet Nam. The first reminder regarding an overdue follow-up report had been sent to Iceland. The Committee had received follow-up reports from Azerbaijan with a 14-month delay, Gabon with a five-month delay, Japan with a one-month delay, Mongolia with a three-month delay, Russian Federation with a five-month delay, Turkey on time, Vanuatu on time, and France with a one-month delay. During the current session, first reminders regarding the submission of follow-up reports should be sent to Albania, Mali, Myanmar, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Haiti. In addition, meetings regarding overdue follow-up reports should be scheduled with representatives of Ghana, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Timor-Leste, and United Arab Emirates.
For use of the information media; not an official record
CEDAW/18/025E