Human Rights Committee - 126th session - July 2019
Palais Wilson, Geneva
The 126th session of the Human Rights Committee took place in Geneva from 1 to 26 July 2019.
The Committee reviewed the reports of four State parties on the implementation of the ICCPR: Mauritania, Netherlands, Paraguay and Tajikistan. Additionally, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria were reviewed in absence of report.
The Committee also adopted the lists of issues in relation to Portugal and Uzbekistan, and the List of Issues Prior to Reporting in relation to Chile, Cyprus, India and Republic of Korea. The List of Issues will be available in the coming weeks.
The Committee adopted the report on Follow-up to Concluding Observations which assesses the information received on the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations in relation to five States: Argentina, Ecuador, Burkina Faso, Namibia and Turkmenistan.
The Status of follow-up to Concluding Observations is available here. The Report of the Special Rapporteur on follow-up on Concluding Observations will be available soon.
During this session, the Committee considered 48 draft decisions under the individual communication procedure. Out of the 48 decisions adopted, 29 were decided on the merits, 12 cases were declared inadmissible and 7 were discontinued. Regarding the cases decided on the merits, the Committee found violations in 26 of them and no violation in 3 cases.
It is important to highlight that 7 cases were discussed in dual chambers as a new measure of the Committee to deal with the backlog of the individual communications.
The Human Rights Committee started the first reading of the Draft General Comment on Article 21 (Right of Peaceful Assembly) of the ICCPR.
The draft General Comment is available in English, French and Spanish.
Upon conclusion of the first reading of the Draft General Comment, stakeholders including Member States, will be invited to provide their comments.
During this session, the Committee held a meeting attended by 67 State parties to have an interactive dialogue about the measures to increase predictability for State reviews.In 2020, the Human Rights Committee will move to a predictable review cycle to ensure regular reporting by all States parties. The calendar will be based on a 8-year cycle. as well as shift from an opt-in model of simplified reporting procedure to an opt-out model.
The Committee will shift from opt-in to opt-out model for simplified reporting procedure and will introduce the List of Issues Prior to Reporting for initial reports. Furthermore, it will continue its efforts to align its methods of work and the lists of issues with other treaty bodies.
