USA fails to appear before the Human Rights Committee due to the shutdown

Overview 109 session – USA

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On 10 October 2013, only four days before the start of the Human Rights Committee’s 109th session, the United States of America requested that the review of its fourth periodic report be postponed as the State delegation was unable to attend due to the Government shutdown.

The Committee was thus faced with an unenviable choice between turning their dialogue into a denunciation by reviewing the USA in the absence of a delegation and allowing the last minute deferral of a review because of domestic political problems.

The Committee decided, exceptionally, to postpone the review of the USA until its next session in March 2014. The late date of this decision meant that the Committee was unable to review another State in the time scheduled for the review of the USA and the need to add the USA to the March session has had a knock-on effect on the proposed timetable for the review of other States with the review of Malawi being postponed from March to July 2014 and Burundi from July to October 2014.

The impact of the postponement of the review on civil society should not be underestimated. Dozens of organisations had planned to attend the review in person and had to cancel their trips to Geneva. In his opening statement the Chairman of the Human Rights Committee acknowledged that ‘many members of civil society had been seriously financially disadvantaged‘ by the postponement and promised that there would be opportunities at the next session for the Committee to hear their contributions before the review of the USA. He emphasised the Committee’s reluctance to allow such postponements.

The review of the USA will now take place at the 110th Session (10 – 28 March 2014).

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