COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS CONCLUDES ITS FIFTY-SECOND SESSION

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights this afternoon concluded its fifty-second session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Armenia, China, including the Special Autonomous Regions of Hong Kong and Macao, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Indonesia, Lithuania, Monaco, Serbia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan on how they implement the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The concluding observations and recommendations of the Committee will be available on the Committee’s webpage on Monday, 26 May in the afternoon.

Zdzislaw Kedzia, Chairperson of the Committee, in concluding remarks, said the Committee had conducted dialogues with representatives of 10 States parties - Ukraine, Indonesia, Monaco, Lithuania, Armenia, China, Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, El Salvador and Serbia - with respect to their reports submitted, and proceeded with the consideration of concluding observations. The Committee had also held discussions on the Committee’s working group related to the Optional Protocol to the Covenant, regarding individual communications, and had designated a coordinator of the five-member working group for communications. The Committee was very eager to begin its work in this area as a Committee. The number of States parties to the Optional Protocol was now 14. Two communications sent to the Committee had been found to be ineligible because they dealt with countries that were not States parties to the Optional Protocol. Two other communications had been registered and the Committee was awaiting the response of the State party, Spain, and hoped to work on at least one of the communications in the November session.

Mr. Kedzia said the Committee had pursued its work on the General Comments on the right to sexual and reproductive health and on just and favourable conditions of work. They also discussed their working methods and other issues related to the treaty body strengthening process, in particular following the adoption of the General Assembly of Resolution A/RES/68/268. The Committee had also adopted guidelines on the independence and impartiality of Members, as announced at their previous session.

The fifty-third session of the Committee will be held from 10 to 28 November, during which the reports of Finland, Guatemala, Montenegro, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Viet Nam will be considered.


For use of the information media; not an official record

ESC14/017E