Human Rights Committee reviews reports of four States, considers individual complaints.

Human Rights Committee reviews reports of four States, considers individual complaints

STEPS TAKEN by El Salvador, Poland, Senegal and Tunisia to implement provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights were examined by the Human Rights Committee at its first 1987 session (23 March-10 April, Geneva). In closed meetings, the Committee also considered complaints by individuals regarding violation of rights guaranteed by the Covenant, submitted in accordance with the Covenant's Optional Protocol. Eighty-six States have become parties to the Covenant so far.

The Committee--set up in 1976 and consisting of 18 experts serving in their personal capacities--also adopted by consensus suggestions and comments on items for inclusion in the plan of activities for the second half (1990-1993) of the Second Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination.

The Committee stated that special efforts should be made to intensify action by all United Nations organs and related bodies in the second half of that Decade so that meaningful results were obtained. It welcomed the General Assembly decision to continue to give highest priority to programmes to combat racism, racial discrimination and apartheid during the remaining years of the Decade.

It also considered as important all international gatherings under United Nations auspices which aimed at reviewing ways and means for eliminating all forms of racial discrimination and apartheid, as well as reviewing the operation of various instruments adopted to eliminate all forms of discrimination.

Committee members said they were ready to participate in all global or regional meetings of this kind, including, in particular, any expert group meeting that might be convened by the United Nations to review the operation of article 27, which relates to the protection of persons belonging to minority groups.

Consideration should be given, the Committee agreed, to organizing an exchange of views among members of various United Nations or United Nations-related bodies with responsibilities relating to the elimination of racial discrimination on how their functioning could be improved. The Committee would also collaborate with any United Nations effort to conduct a global survey of recourse procedures available to victims of racial discrimination.

It stated it would support action to intensify the dissemination of information by the mass media on this question, in particular through the translation into as many languages as possible of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and would welcome efforts to survey current means of dissemination of such information with a view to devising further improvements.

In an opening statement, Kurt Herndl, outgoing Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and Director of the Centre for Human Rights, recalled that the Committee had first met almost exactly 10 years ago--on 21 March 1977. In the decade since then, it had won for itself an enviable reputation for effectiveness. It had considered 69 initial reports, 12 supplementary reports and 14 second periodic reports.

The general comments elaborated by it contained authoritative interpretations on the meaning and thrust of individual articles of the Covenant.