Human Rights Committee Concludes its One Hundred and Thirty-third Session after Adopting Concluding Observations on Reports of Germany, Botswana, Armenia and Ukraine

The Human Rights Committee this morning concluded its one hundred and thirty-third session after adopting its concluding observations on the reports of Germany, Botswana, Armenia and Ukraine, which were considered during the session.

Photini Pazartzis, Committee Chairperson, said this had been an exceptional and transitional session and they had all felt its difficulties. She sincerely hoped that in March all the Committee members would be able to meet in Geneva. During the session, the Committee had held constructive dialogues with four States parties, namely Germany, Botswana, Armenia and Ukraine, and adopted concluding observations which would be posted on the webpage in the coming days. The Committee had also considered the list of issues for Azerbaijan, Greece and North Macedonia.

Under the Optional Protocol on individual communications, the Committee had adopted 37 decisions, including 19 that were decided on the merits, 7 that were declared inadmissible and 11 that were discontinued. Regarding the cases decided on the merits, the Committee found violations in 15 of them. The Committee adopted a progress report on follow-up to concluding observations concerning the

Dominican Republic, Hungary, Jordan and Mauritius. The Committee was pleased to note good progress by these States parties in the implementation of the focused recommendations following the constructive dialogue with the respective delegations.

Ms. Pazartzis said the Committee had revised and adopted its Guidelines on the procedure for follow-up to concluding observations, bringing it in line with the current practice of the Committee. It had also extended the request for follow-up information from two to three years, aligning it with its predictable review calendar with the view to easing the reporting burden on the States parties and yet maintaining a continued dialogue with the State during the reporting eight-year cycle. The Committee had also adopted a progress report on follow-up to views concerning individual communications relating to Finland, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Netherlands, Russian Federation and Uzbekistan. The Committee had decided to review its Guidelines on the procedure for follow-up to views at its next session.

The Committee had adopted a position regarding the treaty body strengthening process, Ms. Pazartzis said. The Committee was supportive of collective efforts across treaty bodies aimed at enhancing the effectiveness and coherence of the system, bearing in mind that each treaty body needed to examine and develop proposals relevant to its treaty and procedures. The Committee continued to support the strengthening of the treaty body system.

A number of Committee Members took the floor to thank the Chair and the secretariat for their support during the session and to congratulate the Committee on a productive session.

All documents relating to the Committee’s session, including reports submitted by States parties, are available on the session’s webpage. The meeting summary releases prepared on the public meetings of the Committee can be found here. The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings can be accessed at http://webtv.un.org/.

The one hundred and thirty-fourth session of the Committee is scheduled to be held from 28 February to 25 March 2022.

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