The new President of the Committee, Mr Fabian Salvioli, shares with the CCPR-Centre his top priorities for his mandate
Mr. Fabian Salvioli, both a university professor and practitioner of international human rights law and member of the Human Rights Committee since January 2009, was unanimously elected chairman of the Committee during its 113th session for the following two years (2015 – 2016). In his inauguration speech, he thanked his father (Emir Salvioli), his son, his colleagues of Amnesty International and his students, and declared: “All of them will chair the Committee, because I am who they made of me”.
The CCPR-Centre, which helps NGOs participate in the review sessions of the Human Rights Committee and supports the latter in its follow-up missions, interviewed Mr Fabian Salvioli after his election.
CCPR-Centre: During your two-year mandate as President of the Human Rights Committee, what will be your top priorities?
Fabian Salvioli: There are several priorities the Human Rights Committee must focus on in the following years. Firstly, the Committee must develop its relationship with the other United Nations Treaty Bodies in order to reinforce the harmonisation of their work. Secondly, the Committee should adopt a more dynamic approach regarding its jurisprudence to take into account the evolution of international human rights law and enhance the fulfilment of the objectives of the ICCPR. The Committee must also strengthen its relationship with representatives of the civil society, as they constitute a most valuable source of information during the review of the State parties’ reports. Lastly, the Committee should improve the methodology of the follow-up procedure on the recommendations and views it has adopted.
Before becoming President, you were the Follow-up Rapporteur on concluding observations. What successes did you achieve during this two-year mandate?
During my two-year mandate as Follow-up Rapporteur on the concluding observations, we developed the Committee’s follow-up procedure by including information from the State and NGOs in our reports, strengthening the grading system to evaluate the implementation of the recommendations and organising follow-up meetings with State parties to share our concerns. All of these measures enabled us to remind the State parties that their reporting obligations under the ICCPR is not limited to the presentation of a report at the Committee sessions but is an on-going process during which it must provide information on the implementation of the recommendations made by the Committee.
Turning to the role of NGOs, how important is their work for the Committee and how can they reinforce their participation in the review of State parties’ reports?
As I mentioned earlier, NGOs provide the Committee with valuable information on the implementation of the ICCPR by the State parties. The civil society reports and the formal and informal briefings during the session enable the Committee members to prepare for the dialogue with the State parties. To reinforce their participation in the review process, NGOs should strengthen their reports in order to facilitate the work of the Committee. This can be achieved by providing more detailed and concrete information that falls within the scope of the Covenant.
The CCPR-Centre has started to organise follow-up missions in the States recently reviewed by the Committee. What role do you believe those missions can play in the future?
The CCPR-Centre has become a key actor in the work of the Committee and plays an important role in the follow-up missions, which provide concrete results on the recommendations made by the Committee. For instance, the follow-up mission in Bolivia, which involved engaging with the judiciary, has ensured that judges conducting judicial review of abortion cases now interpret the legislation in accordance with the ICCPR. Moreover, these informal follow-up missions enable the Committee members who take part to develop a dialogue with the State party thus improving the outreach of the Committee’s findings. To this effect, I would like to thank the CCPR-Centre for all the support it provides in organising these follow-up missions.
