Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Concludes Sixty-ninth Online Session after Adopting Concluding Observations and Recommendations on Reports of Finland and Latvia

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights this afternoon concluded its sixty-ninth online session after adopting concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Finland and Latvia.

The concluding observations and recommendations will be available on the webpage of the session at the end of the day on Monday, 8 March.

In concluding remarks, Michael Windfuhr, Committee Rapporteur, said this had been the Committee’s second session held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Committee had conducted online dialogues with the delegations of Finland and Latvia despite the constraints placed by online meetings. The concluding observations and recommendations were adopted.

Under the Optional Protocol, the Committee had examined five communications, declaring two of them inadmissible according to the requirements set by the Optional Protocol. The Committee found two violations of the Covenant under the Optional Protocol. The Committee had also decided to discontinue the examination of 16 individual communications, eight of them because the authors had found a solution to the situation that led them to submit a complaint. The decisions had been notified to the parties and made public. The Committee had also approved a draft of the Rules of Procedure under the Optional Protocol and decided to mandate the Working Group on individual communications to share the draft Rules of Procedure for comments by interested parties for their discussion in plenary at the next session.

Mr. Windfuhr said that during the session, the Committee had worked on a draft General Comment on Covenant obligations relating to land, and it would circulate it later this month to stakeholders for input and contributions. The Committee had also discussed the preparation of a statement on universal affordable vaccination for COVID-19, international cooperation and intellectual property, which it hoped to issue next week.

The seventieth session of the Committee will be held from 27 September to 15 October. The Rapporteur said he hoped that it would be an “in person” session and that the Committee would continue its regular review of State party reports.

CESCR.21.004E