Overview of the 123rd session
Published on 25 Jul 2018, 09:29 AM
Human Rights Committee's 123rd session - July 2018
NGOs at the 123rd session of the Human Rights Committee in Geneva, July 2018
The 123rd session of the Human Rights Committee took place in Geneva from 2 to 27 July 2018. Yuval Shany was appointed as new Chair of the Committee. Mauro Politi and Sarah Cleveland were elected as new Vice-chairs.
Examination of six countries and adoption of List of Issues
The Committee reviewed the reports of five States on the implementation of the ICCPR: Algeria, Bahrain, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Liberia, Lithuania. The Gambia was reviewed in absence of State report, resuming its dialogue with the Committee after more than 3 decades.
The Committee also adopted the Lists of Issues in relation to the reports of Angola, Niger and Vietnam, as well as the List of Issues Prior to Reporting in relation to Germany and Israel, and the List of Issues in absence of report of Eritrea. The List of Issues will be available in the coming weeks.
Follow-up procedure
The Committee adopted the report on Follow-up to Concluding Observations which assesses the recent information received on the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations in relation to five States: Canada, Kazakhstan, Malta, Suriname and Cambodia. The report will be available soon. The Annex on the Status of follow-up to concluding observations is available here.
42 decisions adopted under the individual communication procedure
42 individual communications were examined at this session, out of which 29 were examined on the merits. Of those, 26 were found to be violating the Covenant, and 3 were decided as non-violations. 5 were found to be inadmissible and 8 were discontinued.
Second reading of the draft General Comment on right to life
During this session, the Human Rights Committee continued the second reading of its draft General Comment on Article 6 (right to life) taking into consideration the comments from more than 170 stakeholders. So far, the Committee has adopted 55 paragraphs of the draft. It is expected that the Committee will finish the second reading during the next session.
Methods of work
With respect to methods of work, the Committee discussed the draft report on LOIPR prepared by the working group and considered its conclusions and recommendations. It also discussed the paper on the 2020 review based on the questionnaire circulated by the Meeting of Chairs.
