HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS MEETS WITH MEMBERS OF HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE

Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, met this afternoon with Members of the Human Rights Committee to discuss her plan of action for expansion and renewal of her Office.

The Member States of the United Nations appeared to be enthusiastic about the plan's proposed changes, Ms. Arbour said. The plan was now part of the Secretary-General's package of reform proposals, which included a call to replace the Commission on Human Rights with a Human Rights Council. It was expected that a consensus would be reached in September on the creation of such a Council and on its methods of work. If there was support not just on the strategic vision but on the ways and means, this would gain political support on a wider basis.

The proposal of the Secretary-General to reform the treaty bodies was much less advanced, and the focus remained on reforming the Commission, the High Commissioner said. Meetings such as this one were part of the start of the important discussion aimed at strengthening the implementation of human rights on a world-wide scale.

Committee Members raised various issues, making proposals and asking questions addressed to the High Commissioner. It was felt that it was important that the Committee be consulted with regards to the reform proposals, as it had a long-standing experience as a treaty body. Care should be taken to ensure that a new human rights system would guarantee that the specificities of each of the different human rights instruments would still be taken into account; and also to ensure that the new human rights body would have the time and financial support to fulfil its tasks appropriately. It would be dangerous to conclude a quick political deal that could be in contradiction with the spirit of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocols, a Member said.

There was great potential in the reform suggestions, in particular the peer review system, which would strengthen the work of the various treaty bodies, were it to function as hoped, Committee Members said. This was an opportunity to strengthen various functions of the treaty bodies, such as the early warning system, and this should not be neglected. The role of national non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions should not be neglected in this context. One of the strengths of the system was that it was not an adversarial one, and it was hoped that the reforms would enhance the dialogue format.

There was wide and general support for the High Commissioner’s proposals among Committee Members, however some ambiguity in the proposals was pointed out. The need to build for the future and not merely in response to current challenges was a vital point that should be borne in mind during the reform process, the Members said, and the new human rights body should not be just a summary of existing bodies, but instead should be a step forward with different and strengthened possibilities and tools for addressing shortcomings. The possibility of a Human Rights Court was also pointed out in this context.

Responding to these questions, comments and proposals, the High Commissioner said if anybody interested in the process had been tempted not to consult, the wealth of ideas and challenges just expressed would be an invitation to continue this dialogue. Regarding the question of consultation and transparency, a process that would be as inclusive as possible would be put into place. In particular, the wealth of expertise and experience in the treaty body system, including in the Committee and its members, would be a resource to fuel the discussions to take place in the months to come.

A sense of urgency and of momentum should be maintained to get to the bottom of the issue, Ms. Arbour said. This was not a small task, and there were a lot of complex and legal questions, with many different needs, to move into a unified system that would respect the specificity that was the great value of the current treaty body system, and would reinforce the attitude reflected in the current bodies such as in the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women or the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The impetus should not be just efficiency and expediency, and it was not driven solely by these concerns; it was driven and had to remain driven by the collective commitment to the improvement of the position of rights holders, and the High Commissioner said she would make this argument even if the reforms were to result in greater expense for the system. It was all about improving the ultimate product of a system that at the present time had many shortcomings, including visibility, productivity and efficiency, particularly with regard to implementation of decisions.

The High Commissioner said the relationship between the direction that was currently being proposed and the idea of the peer review mechanism in the new Human Rights Council was clear, but both remained in their infancy. Focus should not be on the composition of the new Council, but on its working methods and the contents of its work. The so-called discredit that was said to have tainted the Commission over the last few years could be due to the public perception of various members of the Commission, but the High Commissioner believed that its main failing was its behaviour with regard to country-specific situations, as it was selective, and could be seen to be using double-standards in this context. This was in effect a form of peer review, but was done very poorly. There was a need for a fair, transparent and universal system of political accountability for human rights situations.

The peer review system in the Council and the efforts made to move towards a new human rights system should be driven by the need to not duplicate any task. The peer review system in the Council should build on existing information, and it should build on the work of the treaty bodies, and should not be geared towards collecting new information on Member States, some of which were already crushed under the United Nations system’s demands for accountability on various issues. There should be a real complementarity between the Council and the system. The months and years to come were an opportunity to work on both fronts and to come out of the process with a system that had every reason to end up being a large improvement of the current largely deficient system. The input and experience of the Committee would, the High Commissioner repeated, be most helpful in this regard.

This was a unique opportunity, which should be explored to its intellectual limit, the High Commissioner concluded.

Speaking at the end of the meeting, Christine Chanet, Chairperson of the session, said that Committee Members were cautious but optimistic regarding the reforms and looked forward to contributing to the process. There would be a clear need for consultation with many other organizations and bodies. The Member States would make the final decision, and therefore they would have to be shown a concept that demonstrated that there were more advantages than disadvantages in the proposed new system so that they would have no opportunity of going back on their commitments with regards to the reform.

The Human Rights Committee is currently holding its eighty-fourth session, which will conclude on 29 July. During the session, it has considered the reports of Yemen, Tajikistan, Slovenia, Syria, and Thailand. It will meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 21 July, to take up its Revised General Comment on article 14 of the International Covenant on the principle of equality before justice.

For use of the information media; not an official record

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