HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE OPENS ONE HUNDRED AND TWELFTH SESSION, ADOPTS ITS AGENDA AND PROGRAMME OF WORK

The Human Rights Committee this morning opened its one hundred and twelfth session, hearing an address by Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting its agenda and programme of work.

In his opening statement Mr. Salama briefed the Committee on recent events that would impact on its work, including on treaty-body strengthening, reprisals and the publication of a long awaited General Assembly report on the impact of surveillance and interception of communications on human rights. The momentum surrounding the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on the abolition of the death penalty was another important issue said Mr. Salama, noting that 160 States had now abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or practice, or had suspended executions, which was a welcome trend towards universal abolition.

Nigel Rodley, Committee Chairperson, said the Committee did not operate in a vacuum and it was impossible not to mention what was happening in Syria and Iraq, with respect to a group that was pursuing policies that were simply the antithesis of universal values and human rights standards. That group claimed statehood, but it glorified murder and torture, and murder by torture, of innocents, philanthropists and journalists, in the eyes of the international community. It was a brazen challenge to the international community, said Mr. Rodley, saying he could not think of a clearer case that invoked the responsibility to protect, even if that was outside the boundaries of the Covenant.

The Committee also heard a short update from Yadh Ben Achour, Committee Rapporteur on Communications, on the cases considered by the Working Group of Communications, and adopted its report.

When the Committee next meets in public at 3 p.m. this afternoon, it will begin its consideration of the fifth periodic report of Sri Lanka (CCPR/C/LKA/5). During its four week session the Committee will also consider the reports of Burundi, Haiti, Malta, Montenegro and Israel. The programme of work can be found in the background press release.

Opening Statement

IBRAHIM SALAMA, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, conveyed the greetings of the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, who succeeded Navi Pillay on 1 September 2014, and said Mr. Zeid indicated that he would give the utmost importance to recommendations and decisions of the treaty bodies and take the necessary action to ensure that greater priority was given to their implementation. He also expressed gratitude to the six Committee members, many long-serving, whose terms would end this session. Mr. Salama briefed the Committee on positive and recent events that would impact on its work, including on the treaty-body strengthening process and the General Assembly decision to provide additional ad hoc resources to the Committee, which had brought positive results. He welcomed the Committee’s appointment of a Rapporteur on Reprisals, noting the words of the Deputy High Commissioner that “Reprisals undermine the functioning of the United Nations as a whole, including that of its human rights mechanisms”.

The publication of a long awaited report mandated by a General Assembly resolution on the impact of surveillance and interception of communications on human rights was another positive event, said Mr. Salama, adding that the Committee’s work was well represented in the report, notably the thorny issue of the extra-territorial responsibility of States. The report could be an excellent resource for the Committee’s key work on the issue, as the right to privacy was clearly protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Committee was in an enviable position to engage with States and make recommendations for change on issues such as the use of mass surveillance.

The momentum surrounding the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on the abolition of the death penalty was another important issue. Several reports on the death penalty were and would be presented to the Council and the General Assembly this year said Mr. Salama, noting that 160 States had now abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or practice, or had suspended executions. That was a welcome trend towards universal abolition. Mr. Salama recalled the High Commissioner’s speech at a recent high-level meeting on the death penalty in New York in which he stressed that “No judiciary, anywhere in the world, is so robust that it can guarantee that innocent life will not be taken, and there is an alarming body of evidence to indicate that even well-functioning legal systems have sentenced to death men and women who were subsequently proven innocent. This is intolerable”.

Statement by the Chairperson of the Committee

NIGEL RODLEY, Chairperson of the Committee, said the Committee did not operate in a vacuum and it was impossible not to mention what was happening in Syria and Iraq, with respect to a group that was pursuing policies that were simply the antithesis of universal values and human rights standards. That group claimed statehood, but it glorified murder and torture, and murder by torture, of innocents, philanthropists, and journalists, in the eyes of the international community. It carried out those acts in the name of a great religion and in doing so it desecrated that religion. It was a brazen challenge to the international community said Mr. Rodley, saying he could not think of a clearer case that invoked the responsibility to protect, even if that was outside the boundaries of the Covenant.

Meanwhile, long-running conflicts and associated human rights violations persisted, including within Syria itself as well as in Israel and Palestine, said Mr. Rodley, noting that some dimensions of the latter conflict would be considered by the Committee this session. The continuing conflict in the Great Lakes Region of Africa received less attention; and astonishingly there was now a conflict in Eastern Europe where settled borders were being challenged by force and a planeload of people had been blown out of the air to their deaths. The Chairperson urged Committee members to bear the context of the broader global situation in mind as they dealt with the situations on the agenda this session on their merits and the facts.

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

Report by the Working Group on Communications

YADH BEN ACHOUR, Rapporteur on Communications, said the Working Group on Communications met from 29 September to 3 October during which time it considered 45 cases. It considered six to be inadmissible and one to be admissible and considered 38 cases on their merits. The Rapporteur expressed regret that several draft cases had not been translated into the working languages of the Committee, and highlighted that some members had been forced to work in languages that were not their own in order to consider the drafts in a timely fashion.

The report of the Working Group was then adopted.



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CT14/030E