Overview of the 143rd Session of the Human Rights Committee (3 -

Overview of the 143rd Session of the Human Rights Committee (3 - 28 March 2025)

Published on 13 Mar 2025, 10:57 AM

The Committee reviewed five countries on the application of the ICCPR. Mr. Soh was appointed new Chair of the Committee, while the review of Haiti was postponed for a third time

Mr. Soh was appointed Chair of the Human Rights Committee.

Five reports under review. The Human Rights Committee conducted five reviews of periodic reports and adopted Concluding observations on the third report of Albania, the second report of Burkina Faso, the seventh report of Mongolia, the second report of Montenegro, and the second report of Zimbabwe, which was finally considered after 27 years of its last review. Seven CSO briefings were organized by the Centre in addition to the two formal briefings organized by the Secretariat.

Planning ahead. The Committee also adopted the List of issues in relation to Chad, and the List of issues prior to reporting of Antigua and Barbuda (never reviewed before!), Barbados, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Mauritius, New Zealand and Samoa (never reviewed before!).

Changing membership of the Committee. This session was the first one for the five new Committee members: Mr. Fernández Liesa, Mr. Korkelia, Ms. Leinarte, Mr. Saidov, and Mr. Šimonović. Mr. Soh was appointed as Chair of the Committee, while Ms. Tigroudja, Ms. Bassim and Mr. Quezada were appointed as Vice-Chairs. Lastly, Mr. Helfer was appointed Chair of the Working Group on Individual Communications. The CCPR-Centre wishes to extend its heartfelt congratulations and deepest gratitude to the departing members — Ms. Kran, Mr. Santos Pais, Mr. Gómez, and Ms. Tchamdja — for their dedicated work and invaluable contributions to the Committee.

Review of Haiti was postponed for the third time in three years. The CCPR-Centre published a press release (EN and FR) regretting the State’s last-minute decision of not attending the scheduled dialogue, and maintained the informal briefing with the Haitian NGOs.

Decisions adopted on Individual Communications

The Committee adopted 66 decisions, 38 were decided on the merits, 5 cases were declared inadmissible, and 23 communications were discontinued.

In addition to this, unfortunately the presentation and adoption of the Follow-up report on Views was postponed to the next Committee session.

Next on the agenda

The next session of the Human Rights Committee, 144th, is scheduled to take place from 23 June to 25 July 2025. The Committee will then review Guinea-Bissau (never reviewed before!), Kazakhstan, Latvia, North Macedonia, Spain and Viet Nam. It will also adopt the List of Issues Prior to Reporting of Argentina, Australia, Bahamas (never reviewed before!), Denmark, Ghana, Liechtenstein, Morocco, Rwanda, Sweden and Switzerland.