Item 18 - Cooperation with Special Procedures - Oral Intervention

18/04/2005
Press release

Joint oral statement by Amnesty International, Baha’i International Community,
Franciscans International, Friends World Committee for Consultation (Quakers), Human
Rights Watch, International Federation of ACAT, Lutheran World Federation and
Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peoples (MRAP)

Cooperation with Special Procedures
Amnesty International, Baha’i International Community, Franciscans International, Friends
World Committee for Consultation (Quakers), Human Rights Watch, International
Federation of ACAT, Lutheran World Federation and Mouvement contre le racisme et pour
l’amitié entre les peoples welcome the increasing number of Standing Invitations being
issued to the Special Procedures of the UN Commission on Human Rights. In particular,
we would like to highlight those issued since the last session of the Commission:
Mongolia, Republic of Macedonia, New Zealand and Uruguay, bringing the total to 52.
We urge all other States, in particular those who are currently members of the Commission
to do likewise: Armenia, Australia, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, China, Congo, Cuba, Dominican
Republic, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Japan,
Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russian
Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Togo, Ukraine, USA and
Zimbabwe.
At the same time, we call on all States, whether or not they have issued a Standing
Invitation, to cooperate with the Special Procedures by:

• facilitating their visits in accordance with the terms of reference on fact-finding missions;
• ensuring the widest distribution of the recommendations of the Special Procedures
following a country visit, the incorporation of those recommendations into national plans
of action and their reflection in national protection systems where appropriate;
• providing information to the Special Procedures on how the recommendations arising
from country visits have been implemented, and identifying any obstacles to
implementation;
• responding fully and promptly to communications from the Special Procedures,
including urgent appeals and letters of general allegation;
• reviewing and implementing recommendations concerning the protection of human
rights generally elaborated by the Special Procedures;
• protecting those who provide information to or meet with the Special Procedures from
reprisals, investigating and prosecuting those alleged to be responsible for any such
reprisals, and reporting to the Commission on these developments; and
• demonstrating respect for the mechanisms and the mandate-holders by refraining from
attacks on individual mandate-holders casting doubt on their integrity.
We believe that States which are members of the Commission have a particular
responsibility to strengthen human rights standards, of which co-operation with the Special
Procedures, as just elaborated, is one critical element.
We welcome the recent steps taken by some of the Special Procedures and encourage others
to follow their example, in particular:
• to establish mechanisms for follow-up to country missions, including through seeking
information from States and NGOs on implementation of recommendations;
• to develop criteria to determine what constitutes a full and satisfactory reply from
governments, and identify clearly those responses which fail to meet these criteria;
• to highlight general recommendations on the protection of human rights in their public
reports and on the website in order to facilitate increased reference to and use of their
recommendations; and
• to highlight in public reports the outstanding mission requests where the State has
systematically failed to give a positive response.
Finally, we urge the Commission to make better use of the analysis and recommendations of
the Special Procedures in its work, which would help to depoliticize its examination of both
thematic issues and country situations, and to pay particular attention to those States that fail
to cooperate with its mechanisms.

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