2nd Meeting, 38th Session - Chairpersons of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies

I So I'd like to move to the next agenda item, which is item nine, consultations with the UN agencies and welcome all the agencies, agencies and entities.
Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, dear representatives from UN agencies and programs.
It is a pleasure to welcome all of you to the consultation with the UN agencies in the context of 38th annual meeting of the chairs of the Human Rights Trey bodies.
We have been discussing due to liquidity situation and chronic persistent underfunding since J Resolution 68268, the treaty system is at breaking point.
This has been exacerbated by a lack of predictability, cancellation, reduction of sessions, late confirmation, and lack of progression on certain elements of the treaty body strengthening package.
I'm very much aware of the problems that stakeholders are facing in engaging with the treaty bodies.
However, we'd like to sincerely thank you all for your continued contributions and engagement.
More needs to be done in relation to coordination among committees.
The working paper provided by the office has been shared on the web page of the meeting since last week.
It contains three proposals that have been put forward by the office and we are actively seeking comments on them or any other proposals.
As you may know, the recent Rigi retreat discussions on the future of the treaty by the system convened by Switzerland and the Geneva Human Rights Hub last week offered a valuable opportunity to consider necessary reform to key aspects of the system.
The proposals included in the OHSHL discussion paper are key to engaging with all stakeholders in what is our common challenge so that together we can co create the solutions that are necessary.
To explain a little bit of paper, paper focuses on three key elements.
The first restructure of the dialogue, decentralized and clustered treaty body dialogues by subsets of experts, a predictable ADL calendar, and would be webcast and accessible for people with disabilities.
Trey bodies would remain plenary sessions in Geneva to adopt concluding observations.
Second, digitalize the submission platform, digitalize the system of reporting, and create a secure, integrated, multilingual online report submission platform to simplify state reporting.
And third, strengthen the election of treaty body members on online platform for election of treaty body members, state parties will submit candidates online and candidates would be invited to fill out detailed standardized information on the relevant qualifications and experience.
This 38th annual meeting of chairs of the treaty bodies is an important opportunity to bring your experience to the fore.
I encourage you to think outside the box and to engage further, including with all our diverse stakeholders on proposals that can lift this system up to its full potential.
Please let us know if you'd like to raise any other issue also.
We've been discussing this morning and this afternoon before public meeting about this working paper and RG retreat among ourselves, but I would like to listen to you from outside.
I will now open the floor for comments.
Please kindly limit your interventions to any limit minutes, no limits.
You know, it's supposed to be 5 minutes, but, you know, because we are short number of the members, so we can we can anyway, is open.
Yes, please, UCR.
Great.
Just one moment.
Thank you very much Chair and thank you also to the distinguished chairpersons of the various committees for allowing me a few minutes to speak on behalf of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
For several decades now, UNHCR has engaged regularly with the UN treaty bodies and the appreciation for the important work carried out by the committees and the staff that support them has never waned.
UNHCR has both contributed to and benefited from the important work of the treaty bodies in various ways.
Including through efforts to utilize concluding observations, decisions, recommendations, and other outcomes in our operational work toward reinforcing protection and advancing solutions for refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, and other forcibly displaced persons globally.
Um, this time of reflection is particularly poignant for UNHCR as we approach World Refugee Day on June 20th, this coming weekend and in this year, which commemorates both the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees and the 65th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the reduction of statelessness.
It is also an auspicious time to remind ourselves of the common human rights underpinnings of the International refugee and Human Rights instruments for which we are respectively mandated to supervise compliance.
The complementarity of the frameworks is vital in reaffirming that these instruments and the work to protect and promote the human rights enshrined within them remain as relevant and pivotal as they were at the time of their adoptions and perhaps even more so.
We're living at a time when we are facing both external challenges to the protection and fulfillment of people's human rights, including those of refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, and others, as well as the well known internal challenges related to diminishing resources and the need for organizational efficiencies amongst others.
As these processes to review and revise the ways of the working, the ways of working of the UN treaty bodies continue to develop.
It's also a time for optimism and renewed energy.
There are ways to be more nimble, flexible, and efficient, but we always ensuring that the core human rights are at the forefront at all times.
Through UN HCR's engagement with the treaty bodies, we have seen the impact that the concluding observations, decisions, outcomes, and general comments or recommendations can have persons protected from refument families released from arbitrary detention, nationality legislation improved, and the differentiated impacts on women, children, racial minorities, and others highlighted and protected.
While the processes of change can be complicated, we should not question the vital enduring and life changing nature that this work can make.
UNHCR looks forward to continuing to partner with the UN treaty bodies and with OHCHR, member states, national human rights institutions, civil society, and critically with persons with lived experience, and other stakeholders that can ensure a robust and flexible human rights system for decades more to come.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your intervention.
Please, Hilow representative.
Good morning, Distinguished chairs.
First of all, the IO would like to welcome the excellent collaboration between the Secretariat of the supervisory bodies and the Secretariat of the annual meeting of the chairs of treaty bodies.
Indeed, there have been already some exchanges on some aspects that you have raised Chair, with respect to necessary changes to reporting mechanisms, moving to digital platforms to facilitate reporting by member states because the IO is in the same process.
Right now, we are also introducing a system of digital reporting, and we would be happy to exchange experiences.
We have already had some preliminary discussions in that regard in spirit of gross fertilization.
Also to mention that, of course, the IO is thankful to the treaty bodies for their invaluable contribution to promoting respect for labor rights as human rights in synergy with the IO supervisory bodies, supervising the application of international labor standards.
And that we welcome the very close collaboration that has developed over recent years.
This has culminated, among other things to the annual exchanges that have been taking place between the committee of experts on the application of conventions and recommendations and you the chairs of treaty bodies.
This began in December 2022 for chairs who may not have had this history, maybe just to recall briefly.
The first subject of discussion where the findings of the first interagency review of the integration of three programming principles of the human rights based approach L&OBN G in the new generation of CCAs and cooperation frameworks.
This exchange resulted in the release of a joint statement between eight treaty body chairs and their lo committee experts.
Which refer to the need to join forces in light of the current context with a view to promoting the full respect, fulfillment and promotion of all human rights, including international labor standards through joint analysis, concerted action, and thematic periodic meetings.
Three meetings have taken place so far, thematic meetings, The first one marked the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Ilo Convention number 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the right to organize.
The second focused on the right to work in the context of environmental, demographic and digital transitions on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Philadelphia Declaration, which is part of the I Constitution and was a precursor to the Universal Declaration.
And the third thematic exchange took place last December in the presence of the chair, Mr.
Saul, and we're very grateful for that.
The subject was the synergies between business and human rights and the work of the treaty bodies and their supervisory bodies.
We also had miss Pitz Mo o Fung, who was chairing the working group on Business and Human rights at the time and the chairs or representatives of the chairs of five treaty bodies.
Now we are finalizing the concept note for the Fourth Exchange, which will come at a landmark moment for the committee of Experts because it will be the occasion of its 100th anniversary.
Indeed, this body was created along with the tripartite committee on the application of standards in 1926.
It was a front runner precedent and the model upon which the subsequent treaty body system was established.
The committee of Experts, would like to have and propose as the subject of this thematic exchange, artificial intelligence, and how it impacts on the application of the human rights treaties and the international labor standards.
The moment is quite good for this because first of all, last Friday, the IO adopted a new groundbreaking instrument on decent work in the platform economy after two years of very complicated negotiations.
It was an important moment of great pride Tripartit consensus was obtained on this subject, which includes aspects of algorithmic management, among other things.
In addition to this, the artificial intelligence has been the subject of the report of the IO Director General to the conference and the IO is in the process of launching a collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for the preparation of a briefing to the chair of the Human Rights Council on AI and human rights including labor rights.
So there is a lot of material, a lot happening that would provide the background for this discussion.
And then also to say that the committee of experts is now interested in deepening the interaction and ensuring a more active follow up to the exchanges.
And so we have been asked by the chair of the committee of Experts to organize bilateral exchanges with those chairs who participated that are interested in following up on the development of the initiatives that were presented at the last exchange.
This includes, of course, the joint statement on artificial intelligence and the rights of the child.
Which was in the meantime signed, including by the IO Director General and 14 other inter organizations.
Then also, there was an exchange already with the chair of CMW the focal point of CMW who presented a roadmap for collaboration, which is going to be examined and discussed further.
And then there's also interest on our side, on the side of the dio of the chair of the committee of experts on the joint working group created by SE Dow in order to explore the impact of digitalization on the rights of women.
This is something that was mentioned by the representative of SE Dow at the last exchange with the committee of experts.
So we have contacted the Secretariat of SE Dow on this.
You might already know that the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on whether the right to strike as part of Convention 87 or not following a very longstanding debate taking place inside the law between the constituents.
The International Court of Justice gave a positive answer to this.
Now, there will be further dialogue within the law to find the way forward.
But it is also development that is coming at the moment when the Human Rights Committee is preparing a general comment on Article 8 of ICCPR.
In fact, the ICJ referred both to ICCPR and the covenant on economic, social and cultural rights and the work of the two treaty bodies that monitor their application as well as the regional human rights bodies.
In order to explore the aspect of policy coherence.
Also, conversion 80 haven't been explicitly mentioned in the two covenants.
So there is collaborating with the Human Rights Committee on this, and we will send very soon our inputs to the second round of consultations, which will include an update on the ICJ decision.
And then just very quickly, we are also pursuing an active collaboration with OHR under the Global Coalition for Social Justice with focus on the human rights economy.
We have a pilot project in Kenya which focuses on laboral law reforms and tax to justice.
We are engaging also with OCHA in the second interagency review of the CCAs and cooperation frameworks.
And you may recall the first review was actually it helped to launch these exchanges with the treaty bodies.
So now it is the second time that we are looking at what happened in the meantime.
There is also a deep dive into the integration of international labor standards and the all supervisory bodies in this um programming instruments and the results of the study, as you may know already, will be released later in the year.
Finally, allow me to mention that the Tripartite Committee on Application of Standards, which also celebrated its centenary with participation of its HR and the statement that was made and we're again very grateful.
They Just ended their session last Friday, they examined a number of country cases, including Belarus with respect to freedom of association and Myanmar on Freedom of Association and forced labor.
On these two countries, we're pursuing a close collaboration with the special mandates entrusted with monitoring the situation, as well as in other countries, Ukraine, Venezuela, and others.
With that, I remain at the disposal if there are any further questions and thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much.
As she mentioned, I was invited to ILO last December and I was very impressed by your hospitality and also a beautiful building and meeting room.
I envied you.
Tyler Wilson used to be our home, but you have to leave, unfortunately.
But I'm glad that UN HCCR is coming.
That's better instead of becoming a hotel or restaurant.
But anyway, I felt that I had a very good opportunity to exchange the opinions with the experts in our law and there's a lot you can collaborate each other and a lot we can learn from your experiences.
That was a really good opportunity.
I appreciate that one.
Now, I will give the floor to you.
A express our appreciation from UN women to all the chairs of treaty bodies.
It is an honor to be here.
I would like to share some new developments that link treaty bodies with the work of UN women and the global work for gender equality.
First, I would like to highlight that it's because of treaty bodies, general recommendations, comments, and country reviews that we have been able to defend institutions at country level legislation, peace processes, and ensure that reparations for women, for example, having survived sexual violence in conflict have been kept in place.
We have been able to hold ground aligning with the Secretary-General clarion call to hold ground on gender equality and women's empowerment with the principles of, of course, human rights, equality and non discrimination.
Inspired in this work, especially with the CETA committee, that I would like to thank very much for our collaboration, we work in a full cycle with our country offices, from the review process, from the report with UN country teams, with civil society organizations supporting their shadow reports, and then through our strategic notes and work with gender theme groups in implementation.
Um, our support to the latest three recommendations of the committee, 39 on indigenous women, 40 on women's leadership and political participation, and currently 41 on gender norms and gender stereotypes will enable us to create a positive cycle in terms of moving forward with their recommendations from the committee.
This work has inspired you and women to create a new section that I'm very proud to lead that will combine the work on human rights, rule of law, non discrimination with a special emphasis on racial justice, women living with disabilities, LGBTIQ persons, women living with HIV Aids, and indigenous women.
Um, we have, as part of our very strong emphasis on implementation, mapped the recommendations of treaty bodies, special procedures and human rights mechanisms and found that from the beginning of the Human Rights Council, we can count 44,000 recommendations that if we were able to cluster, could give us a roadmap.
For effective demonstration of the impact of human rights mechanisms.
We hope to collaborate on this with you.
Next week, we will launch this report which we prepared in light of Beijing plus 30, where the reviews clearly demonstrated that even though we have advanced on the normative, the implementation is lacking.
We think that that can be our contribution to strengthen treaty bodies processes.
Of course, in the three points that you mentioned, we will be very happy to liaise with different civil society organizations with the UN City on the strengthening selection processes, mechanisms, ensure participation, ensure dissemination of the important work of treaty bodies.
I also would like to share that CSW revitalization and resolution of the General Assembly last year implicated human rights mechanisms at the highest levels of implementation of CSW.
From now on the agreed conclusions have to be time bound, concrete for implementation, and we are fortunate that this year the theme was on access to justice and non discrimination, which ended in 50 agreed conclusions that we have clustered on transformative law reform, institutional coordination to ensure access to justice for all women and girls, prevention and accessible justice systems.
Financing and resourcing, we have done costing studies in more than 25 countries on what it would take to have real access to justice for women and girls, Justice mechanisms and accountability, feminist movements and civil society, legal aid and legal empowerment, technology and digital justice, research data, and evidence.
What I look forward is to preparing those roadmaps with each committee, making sure that we can link the different topics affecting a women in multiple intersecting forms of discrimination, but where we can realize more the impact disseminate demonstrated.
We have already study with five country studies and we plan on doing them annually.
I really hope that this new way of working, breaking with the silos, understanding better what it takes for implementation can help us really strengthen our work.
Please count on you and women and thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Now I'll give the floor to the representative from IPU.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairperson, for the opportunity and thank you very much for inviting the IPU to be part of this conversation as well.
So first of all, we wanted to share a bit of our views in the work that we have been doing in the context of the UN human rights treaty body system.
And, um, From the outset, we would like to say that we welcome the working paper produced from HR and specifically a point that is connected to the work that IPU is doing, of course, is the recommendation and the point on convening decentralizing cluster treat body dialogues.
This is something of importance for our organization, specifically when this is a recommendation and an action that can really allow for facilitation, meaningful participation of other stakeholders, including civil society, NHRIs, but specifically parliaments.
So IPU has been working for a long time with treaty bodies and the engagement of parliamentarians and national parliaments in the context of the UN human rights mechanisms and specifically the treaty bodies as well.
We have seen an increase of the participation of parliamentarians in the national delegations before the different treaty bodies and the reporting mechanisms and This is exactly why we would like to stress and point out on the importance of including parliamentarians in this process, not only during the writing and the production of the national report, but during the dialogue and the review in Geneva, but especially in the phase after for the implementation of the concluding observations.
It's exactly in this context that the IPU has been working, providing capacity building with four parliamentarians for the members of the organization, the 183 member parliaments of the organization.
Trying to increase and to engage these parliamentarians in the implementation of those concluding observations.
And this point is also very important for us to say that the work with parliamentarians it's essential both to the treaty bodies, but also vice versa, those parliaments and in the national context, it's possible to give clearance and also raise awareness on the importance of implementation of those recommendations.
We also would like to point out the good cooperation that IPU already has with selected treaty bodies, specifically with the CCRC, through the chair of the committee, of course, with CETL and also with the CMW.
We would also like to point out that the IPU is also open to explore the possibility of engaging parliamentarians in other treaty bodies in the same way.
And this also point is important to remember, and I would like to bring this to attention of this meeting as well, that the IPU has launched in 2026, a global campaign on human rights called bringing Human Rights back into light.
And this campaign specifically is launching ten actions that parliaments can take in order to really engage on human rights related issues.
And one of our actions, specifically action six, relates to the engagement that parliaments have with the UN human rights mechanisms.
Here we will try again and continue our engagement with parliaments, trying to show and to demonstrate the importance of parliamentarians to be involved in that.
In our engagement with our member parliaments during IPU assemblies and during our capacity building activities and the other channels of communication that we'll have with parliaments, we will continue bringing this point so that we can have an enhanced participation of parliamentarians in the context of UN human rights mechanisms.
And finally, I would also like to point out that when delegations come to Geneva to participate in the review before the treaty bodies and the reporting mechanisms, it's always an opportunity for the IPU to meet with the parliamentarians and the representatives of the parliament within the national delegations with the role to also share with them the different activities and the different tasks that they can take on as parliamentarians in order to enhance the level of implementation of concluding observations after the review is done.
In this way, as you might know very well, there are recommendations and concluding observations that depend exclusively in a very prominent way of the role of parliamentarians.
It's exactly because of that, the IPU believes that there is a very important role for parliamentarians to play in this context.
We hope that this information was also useful in the course of your work and IPU remains open and also available to cooperate with the different the treaty bodies of the UN and to enhance the participation engagement with parliamentarians in this context.
I thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your time and it's very good to know that IPU paying keen attention to issue of human rights and treaty bodies.
I personally, I always think that it's important to have more parliamentarians in the reviews.
I'm encouraging that one.
Thank you very much.
Is there any stakeholders.
I will open the floor to chairs.
I see Madam Haida.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, the organization present here and say that without their input, our work would not have the same value.
It is crucially important to know that is very much appreciated.
We have been privileged to work more closely with some of you, but I have some concern that We heard recently that UNHCR may not be able anymore to provide us with confidential reporting, which was so important for the committee and we wrote a letter to the High Commissioner of UNHCR asking him to reconsider.
I know that issue is an issue of cutting the resources, but this is very important.
I wanted to state it here.
For ILO, I think it goes without saying not only the new area that you alluded to, but all what we do, we rarely speak about conventions that are not strict to census human rights, but we always speak about ILO convention whenever we deal with it.
And UN women goes without saying, IPU goes without saying.
What I wanted to ask all of them here is, what can we do better because we're doing it.
But how can we publicize more general comment and general recommendation? I feel sometimes that it has some impact when it's issued and then it falls between the cracks.
I've been sometimes on missions on areas and say, do you know about this? Do you know about that? Then I realized that they don't even know that this is a soft claw tool that could be very useful.
I would like us to think collectively and maybe have feedback from you.
I know that UN Women, they do send to all there, but for instance, UNDP doesn't necessarily.
I don't know how to reach out for resident coordinators, resident representative with all general comments of general recommendation, and sometimes maybe provide them with training tools because we have been doing that with UN women at least on one or two of our GR.
That is one area.
The second thing is reporting that comes in the name of the country team.
We are lucky because most of the time the lead is UN women because we are CEDAW.
But I don't know how much you benefit other colleague, other committee from reporting from country teams because this has enormous value, it's confidential.
It is very accurate.
It's one of the best way of striking the balance between CSO, the state party, and having the neutral UN assessment.
I leave it here.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I'll give the floor to Sophie Klotzv please.
Thank you, Chair and thanks all of you for your excellent presentations and highlighting some points of our joint collaboration.
I really would like to begin with thanks with the collaboration the CRC has with your organizations.
First of all, it's supporting our co mandate, the constructive dialogue with the state parties and the concluding observations where as Nava has mentioned, I also personally and many of colleagues we go to the UN entities where we want to have the balanced information confidential to ensure that the concluding observations reflect the current situation and somewhere between the positions, maybe on the one hand of the state party, on the other hand the NGOs.
But really when there are issues which are very conflicting or we cannot understand the truth, we always go to your confidential reports and this is really very much helpful.
I'm also very sorry to hear that you and HCR will not provide.
It's not for us.
Not for this year.
Maybe you can clarify because it's some news for me.
The second point is that I think in these difficult times, it's especially important to work together also on thematic issues and what we have done, I think Karina has mentioned the joint statement on AN child rights where we could unify 13 UN entities A one statement.
This was really very powerful, I think, and I'm very thankful to all the organizations because this was some joint statement, but the general comment may be on AI and children's rights specifically and from the presented organizations.
There are two now, IPU and ILO, but we have many and of course, the CRC which has initiated this.
But I think this is something very important and shows how many common issues we have and how many common issues we share.
The third and last point from my side, I really would like to highlight the importance of involving parliamentarians in the work of the treaty bodies because I maybe a little bit biased as a former parliamentarian, the chair of the Human Rights Committee of Georgian Parliament and our friendship with IPU began exactly when I was the parliamentarian and working together for human rights from the parliamentary perspective, but now working from the treaty body perspective.
I think the merging the two, what we have done on a standard way to establish the standard, the CRC and IPU joint statement in 2022, how parliaments can be involved in the protection and promotion of children's rights.
This shows how much parliaments can do for children.
But the very important point you highlighted, it's importance to work with parliamentarians to engage them in the work of the treaty bodies and what we do all the time during parliamentary assembly.
I try my best to be all the time there.
Despite it's time consuming, but it's very important that we raise awareness of parliamentarians.
Me personally from children's rights perspective, but there are a lot of other spheres and other directions of human rights where other treaty bodies can be very active and engage parliamentarians.
The impact of human rights on the ground increases.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Now I'll give the floor to chair of the CRPD, Madam Kim.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm behind all of you for my convenience.
Please understand.
At the outset, I would like to express my sincere appropriation to United Nations entities, specialized agency, and all colleagues who continue to support the treaty body system during this difficult period of financial and institutional pressure.
I would like to share one important point concerning consultation with United Nations entities and specialized agencies.
At present, there is no single independent UN agency solidly mandated to implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
For this reason, it is essential that UN entities that specialize the agencies maintain and further develop disability related unit programs, and project within US respective mandate.
I'm deeply concerned that under the current financial crisis facing the United Nations Disability related unit program and staff position within major UN entities may be among the first to be reduced, closed or discontinued.
This would be a serious setback for the implementation of the EPD.
The committee's recommendation must be connected to concrete action.
UN entities have an important role in translating them into technical cooperation, capacity building, institutional reform, and country level program.
Disability inclusion within the UN system must also be pursued through an intersectional approach.
Person with disability may experience discrimination based on gender, age, race, ethnicity, indigous, migrant, poverty, complex institutionalization or other situations.
Therefore, all UN entities and specialized agencies should integrate disability inclusion into their program and policies, including in the area of gender equality, children right, older people, humanitarian action, many areas.
In this context, I would like to encourage that U entity and specialized agencies should be submit a project proposal to the United Nations Global Disability Funding, formerly known as the UN Partnership on the Rise of persons with disabilities.
The funding is an important multi partner mechanism supporting CPD implementation and disability incus sustainable development goal with the meaningful participation of the Organization of persons with disability.
We are relevant to such a project proposal should take into account the committees conclusion observation, general comment guideline, and other recommendations.
This would have built a practical bridge between the committee's legal recommendation and the operation work of the UN system.
I would also like to emphasize the UN country teams submission during the review of the state party highly appreciated by the committee and these practices should be poly encouraged.
These submission help the committee understand the situation of the ground, including implementation gap and barriers faced by persons with disabilities.
UN country team can also support follow up the committee's recommendation by connecting them with national policies, UN Sustainable Development Cooperation framework, development program, and meaningful participation of Organization of persons with disability.
For this lesion, I would suggest a more structured cooperation among the committee, UN entities, special agencies, UN country team, and the global Disability Fund.
As the advisor of the global disability funding, I strongly suggest this funding to be more regionalization and to support in national level persons with disability.
Ultimately, our shared objective is clear.
The committee's recommendation must lead real improvement in the lives of persons with disability in every country and in every community.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, Madam Kim.
Now I'll give the floor to the chair of the SSR, Madam Saran, please.
You Chair and I want to join my colleagues from the treaty bodies in warmly welcoming the UN entities that are represented here and for the inputs that they have given regarding their coordination and the work of our treaty bodies.
I would like to say that in our committee on economic, social and cultural rights, we deeply value the inputs that are provided by each one of you for our state party dialogues and certainly look forward to the clarification from UNHCR, but yes, please do continue to send us your reports, confidential and otherwise because they really come in useful in our work as well.
Uh, I just thought in the context of, apart from the value that we get from each one of you, particularly as far as IU is concerned and the Committee on economic, social and cultural rights deals with all of the issues, whether it's on discrimination against women, whether it's labor right to work, favorable conditions of work, et cetera, legislation, therefore, role of parliamentarians and of course, all other bodies that are represented.
But as far as ILO is concerned, we've had be designated from our committee, one of our colleagues as the point person for coordination with ILO, and that's worked extremely well for us, very useful.
I would say we could perhaps widen that point person coordination with other UN entities for a constant around the year collaboration with each other.
So I thought this was a suggestion which other UN entities might consider, especially in helping the work of our committee.
Finally, just an observation about the point made by the distinguished representative of IPU about cluster formula working as a meaningful participation of civil society.
At another meeting where we were, in fact, the civil society had expressed some misgivings about such meetings because they felt they were fear of reprisals and also the ability to travel and visas was better done in Geneva than elsewhere.
They did not actually favor regional participation.
I just thought that there is always a point of view from each perspective.
Thought I'd share this.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Madam Saran.
I'll give the floor to Vice Chair of CT, Madame Raku, please.
Thank you very much Chair.
It is particularly available to have colleagues from UN entities and the UN specialized agencies with us today.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for your work.
Started my career long time ago, more than 20 years ago at the UNDP as a project manager of human rights country action plan.
It's not separar.
It's not accidentally that I took with me this notebook from a recent event that I've been invited to carried out by UN women.
Nothing is accidentally in this world.
So Of course, your work in countries and communities, you often see realities that we discussed here in Geneva through reports and during the dialogue with the member states.
You see how the human rights standards are working in practice, including in closed spaces or behind the bars and how the human rights are respected at the grassroot levels.
Of course, this experience is extremely valuable for all treaty bodies.
Um, I do believe that there is scope for making greater use of this expertise and experiences throughout our engagement with state parties, especially.
Usually, our dialogues with the member states in most of the cases focus on challenges and implementation gaps and different level of shortcomings and so on.
My point is that the experience of UN agencies and entities can also help us identify reforms, initiatives and approaches that have produced positive results or positive changes in some regions or countries or even a number of countries and may offer useful lessons a for other regions or other countries.
My idea is to not focus only on gaps or shortcomings or negative findings, but also to bring to the table some positive achievements, some positive results that have been produced with the support of specialized UN agency, which in most of the case, it's a direct contribution of UN agencies.
So um, At the time of significant resource constraints across the UN system, this is not about creating new elements, new entities, it's about making better use of the existing expertise within the UN agencies, including other entities and um, and I'm 100% sure that we can benefit also even drafting the list of issues prior to reporting because very often important projects that have been implemented by different UN agencies are simply neglected during this or especially when it comes to big countries.
The government even when they come to the dialogue, they don't know actually about some particular quite relevant initiatives that exist in some provinces or regions.
I think it's the right momentum now to capitalize also on these elements.
Thank you very much once again and good luck in your noble work and missions.
Thank you very much.
Now, I'll give the floor to Chair of the CSAT.
Mr.
Chairman, thank you to the UN agencies that are present for sharing with us the advance of your work and the importance of what we do in what you do.
Precisely along those lines, as we reflect on the future of the treaty body system, one area that I believe we could make tangible progress regardless of the institutional model that eventually is adopted in the future for treaty bodies, has to do with the implementation of our concluding observations because some of your agencies have presence on the ground, and this is very important.
We do not have presence on the ground.
I wonder whether we could explore more systematic arrangements between treaty bodies and UN agencies, funds, programs to support follow up of our concluding observations at the country level.
Many of our concluding observations and the recommendations within those concluding observations would benefit from the technical perspective that your agencies have.
Right now, for instance, we are working on general comment on women and enforced disappearance and of course, we Good hope that is not only an academic scholarship instrument and, you know, something that is not fulfilled with or complied with at the local level that we would like to see it implemented.
So then we would very much appreciate a follow up by you and women, for instance.
I So I wanted to comment on this because I know this is not the only occasion that we will have an interaction with the UN agencies, but, you know, the beginning of a dialogue.
So thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
I think all the chairs, you have the floor already, right? I mean, your name tag is on this.
No problem.
I think there are some observers in this room.
Is anyone who wish to speak over US agencies and funds, you want to yes, please.
Thank you again, Chair and really thank you for the interventions, both from the chairpersons and from my colleagues.
Actually, I think this communication and conversation in these times gives me a lot of inspiration and also just ideas.
It's really helpful to think about what others are doing and how we may inspire one another.
Thank you for that.
It's happy in these times to be able to counteract at least to come back on information that's not so positive and to say, yes, actually, no, there's not a blanket that we're not supporting with submissions anymore.
Um, I think what has happened, unfortunately, as you know, and we continue to be in transition like the treaty body system is, like many others with resource limitations.
With cuts that were made last year, we've had changes both in the field, of course, with the numbers of operations where we have people on the ground, and then in our unit, my unit I've lost a staff member who was the main person who is going back and forth between my colleagues in the field and the treaty bodies, making sure we had everything on time and pressuring back and forth with the colleagues.
Unfortunately, we've lost that piece of the puzzle, but we absolutely are happy to continue doing submissions.
I think it's also maybe a time though also to think about, are there other ways that we can engage? Confidential submissions, fantastic.
But if they're in some of the committees, we can do inform briefings in some context with the CAT last year, we did a thematic briefing just to talk a bit about some of the issues of interrelations.
Please do look for submissions from us.
I think I will follow up with the Secretariat colleagues and make sure that that is clear and really try to stay on top of it.
But I think the efficiencies that we're talking about here will also help all of us who are also dealing with these limitations to try to make sure that we're being as useful as possible and that we're all working together.
Really thank you for those comments and look forward to continuing to work together.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Is there anyone who wish to please, from representative from ILO? Yes.
Thank you, chair.
Yes, I would like to thank all the chairs for the feedback.
It has been very important.
Perhaps to say that in the case of AIO, the tipping point when we had to stop sending confidential briefings already came about 12 years ago.
So we have already been through that.
We are at the stage where we are trying to see what we can do to reinforce the collaboration within the limits of available resources and the new reporting system that we envisage, which will allow for a lot more transparency, but not in the immediate term in the medium term will greatly facilitate the coordination among secretariat because we hope that the government will place the reports publicly online This will allow, on one hand, as miss Raku was saying, for other governments to look at examples of good practice because there's a lot of compliant practice, which is never highlighted in the comments because the comments will focus on the problems.
This is actually how this is a positive initiative, but at the same time, it will allow more clearer identification of the comments and the areas that are highlighted by the committee of experts as areas where improvements are needed and this could be helpful for the secretariats of the various treaty bodies.
Because we know very well that there is a lot of collaboration.
Of course, the Secretariat draw on the results of the work of respectfully committee experts and the treaty bodies.
On our side, we do it quite systematically.
We know from colleagues here that it's also done at least for a few committees quite systematically.
With respect to SDA, for instance, I just had a quick exchange with my colleagues who said, this is done systematically, not necessarily through the inputs of the country teams though.
But more the concluding observations of CETA.
The same applies, of course, to CRC, to the SAS to Human Rights Committee.
If someone does even a word search in the report of the committee experts, I was able to find comments by the CD, by the CAT, a lot of a lot of cross fertilization and a lot of synergies there.
Then Yes.
One last point on the general observations, because the information shared by CD on the general comments, the committee of experts calls it general observations.
On the general comments, it would be useful to have a mechanism where preparation of general comments is flagged to us because I don't know.
It is Yes.
It's on the website, but we don't necessarily go systematically to the website.
It would be nice if between Secretariat as a way to signal this so that we can coordinate inputs on our side.
Thank you.
I think we tried to do it, but maybe we can make it more visible.
Thank you for your input.
Representative for IPU.
I'll put it first.
A short point to the last intervention by the representative ILO when I mentioned that in Cesk we have 1.1 colleague who interacts with the point person in ILO.
I think that is exactly coming from the other position that they would like more information every time we're working on a general comment or recommendation.
I think we were to have these point persons.
The purpose would be to, in fact, brief each other about developments taking place on areas of common interest and common work.
Perhaps just as I find that our very dedicated interaction with ILO proves very useful.
It's just done by one colleague on the margins of our committee's work whenever we meet, and then she or he keeps us updated on what has happened with ILO.
I think that if we were to institutionalize it or certainly it's thought that I'm giving you were to do it across with other UN entities, it would be very helpful for coordination purposes, a direct interaction between and among our treaty bodies and the respective UN entities.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I will take note of it, please.
Thank you very much.
For the floor.
Again, just to say it's a pleasure for the IPU to be present here and to participate in this conversation and also we would like to thank the representatives and the chairpersons mentioning also the participation of the parliament and the importance of it, which as we mentioned, is something essential in the humans ecosystem and the implementation of concluding observations and other outputs from the UN human rights treaty bodies.
Um, to answer some of the questions and the points raised regarding the point made by the chairperson of the CETL committee and ways in which could be used in order to amplify and to give visibility to general comments and concluding observations, some of the ways that IPU has been working with treaty bodies, specifically with specific ones such as the CETL and the CRC where we have a for focal points and those members allow us to have a relationship directly with the committee and that helps in the way we advance our work.
Of course, in the case of specific the CRC, for instance, having chairperson who's also a former parliamentarian, having this knowledge is really useful, but we believe that this is also very important because it helps in order to advance the knowledge and awareness and the participation of MPs in the context of the work of the treaty bodies.
In that sense, we also would like to highlight that the communication between treaty bodies and the IPU could also be very useful, um especially in getting knowledge and awareness on the participation of MPs, there might be national delegations when they come to Geneva.
This might also enhance our engagement specifically with these MPs and vis-à-vis follow up with them at the national level when it comes to implementation.
This can be a door open and strengthening these communication channels between the IPU and specific treaty bodies with focus on specific issues of interest to the MPs could also be very useful in that sense.
Um, and something that is also very important to point out in terms of best practices and positive practices that we have been doing so far.
One thing that is really useful that is doing IPU assemblies taking place twice a year, Parliamentarians also in national delegations attend the assemblies have the opportunity to report to the global parliamentary community what they have been doing when it comes to good practices in human rights, and that includes the implementation of recommendations from UN human rights mechanisms, including the treaty bodies.
We had in our last assembly in Istanbul, a couple of parliaments taking the floor during our general debate and bringing how they are implementing some of those concluding observations and recommendations.
This is a good practice because other parliaments could also look at those good practices and also get inspired to be able to do the same in their respective countries.
And finally, in the context of our national capacity building activities, we work together with parliaments and very closely with them, organizing activities in order to raise awareness on the issues in the context of UN human rights mechanisms, but also how they can better engage with it.
And when it comes to specific mechanisms such as the UPR, for instance, we try to link this with specific recommendations of treaty bodies on the reason and interest of the parliament.
For specific parliaments, we have used recommendations of the UPR together with the concluding observations of the CRC, for instance, when the parliament has really an interest to work on children's rights, for instance.
This is, again, a way to give visibility to the outcome and the recommendations, to conclude observations of the treaty bodies, and in this sense, also advance and help advancing implementation at the national level.
These will be some of our positive practices in our work.
But as I mentioned before in my first intervention, we would also like to remain open to explore other collaboration and see how the IPU can be useful to the work of the treaty bodies in the same way.
I thank you.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Now I'd like to conclude our consultation with the UN entities and specialized programs.
Thank you again for your participation and constructive dialogue, and I look forward to continuing our collaboration in coming years.
Thank you.
2 minutes.
We'll have a 2 minutes break before we start next consultation with the NGOs and civil society organizations.
I think we need to start.
There are many NGO representatives and we have to end the session by 6:00.
So I'd like to move forward.
Please be seated.
Dear Chairs, vice chairs, treaty body experts, and UN colleagues.
We have now reached the end of our meeting with the UN, I'm sorry.
We will now move to our meeting also public with the NGOs, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations, and academia that interact with the treaty bodies.
Before we hear from you, I'd like to recognize the continued and indispensable support of the national Human rights institutions and civil society organizations to our work.
Civil Society organizations and NGOs and academia are integral partner to and stakeholders of the treatable system, and the treatable system cannot function without your report, inputs to general comments, and days of general discussions, as well as for state party reviews and meetings of the chairs of the treaty bodies.
The treaty body system benefits from real time up to date briefings from civil society, as well as analysis on how treaty body recommendations have led to legal or policy change in the state party.
Information provided to the treaty bodies by civil society shows a more holistic view of the situation in a state party and helps the committee in formulating their recommendations.
We are aware there has been a slight drop in submissions of written reports to the treaty bodies, but this has been largely due to the reduction in the meeting time and actual sessions.
NGOs and civil society continue to engage with the treaty bodies as well as with the treaty bodies system on strengthening the system, harmonizing working methods, and finding solutions to the backlog and updating our digital systems.
We already had an informal meeting with many of you just last week to prepare for this meeting and to find solutions together.
We welcome you warmly today and look forward to this discussion and your contributions.
As we noted in the intervention, the working paper drafted by OHSHR has been online since last week and we welcome your thoughts on that.
I wish you a good meeting.
I look forward to engaging with you.
I'll open the floor to the NGOs and civil society, please, you have the floor.
Yeah.
Please identify yourself before you speak so that shares know.
Hi, hello.
This is Agnes Glacia from Childres Connect.
I will be delivering a statement on behalf of TVnetm International Service for Human Rights and ARC team.
We have several issues to comment on.
So what we thought is that I will speak first on some of concerns and immediate measures that we suggest to you.
And after that, I will pass the floor to my colleagues to speak about the reforms suggested in the OECHR paper.
So let me begin by expressing our strong support for the treaty bodies and the Secretariat staff as you continue to operate under constraints at a time of profound crisis of the UN.
We are deeply concerned about the impact of this crisis on the functioning of treaty body system and on the opportunities for stakeholders to engage.
We recognize the efforts made by the treaty bodies to mitigate these challenges through the online intersectional work.
Virtual stakeholder meetings and other accommodation measures, allowing them to continue discharging their mandates.
I will now speak about concerns and immediate measures and then turn to my colleagues.
We would like to share the following concerns with you.
We are concerned about the cancellation of sessions, pre sessions, stakeholder meetings, and hybrid modalities over the past two years as this has significantly reduced opportunities for civil society to participate.
We particularly regret the cancellation of NGO meetings in some instances, including formal NGO spaces as well as in the framework of pre sessional working groups.
We welcome the analysis provided in the document prepared by OHCHR, exceptional working methods and NGO civil society participation in the treaty bodydy sessions, which provides very important data which aligns with the negative impacts that we have identified in TVNet over the past two years.
Meaningful civil society participation is critical to inform the state reviews and other processes led by treaty bodies as identified in the mentioned document.
We would like to know whether these impacts as identified in the document, will be raised at the meeting with the state parties and involve them in identifying solutions.
In addition, another concern that we have is the late confirmation of sessions and reviews, which continues to create serious obstacles for civil society participation.
Short notice scheduling and last minute cancellations and postponements affect these applications, increases travel costs, and jeopardizes funding opportunities and limits CSO's ability to prepare meaningful submissions.
While we recognize the uncertainty created by the current financial situation, greater predictability is essential.
We also note with concern divergencies in the implementation of previously agreed efficiency measures, in particular, the simplified reporting procedure.
The agreement to make the simplified reporting procedure the default option risks being weakened as some treaty bodies opt out, and this risks undermining an important system wide efficiency reform.
Funding shortfalls and cash conservation measures by UNIC have attempted to withdraw funding of essential accessibility services, including international sign interpretation and captioning for the March 2026 sessions of the Human Rights Council and the CRPD Committee.
Only after public complaints by civil society and letters by the UN high level authorities, funding was ensured 20 days before the date foreseen for the sessions.
While meanwhile, full support to a CRPD committee member remains pending and the funding for national Sign Language during state reviews, this continued in 2024, remain pending and not covered to ensure accessibility during CRPD committee sessions.
Beyond disability specific bodies or sessions, other treaty bodies foresee no budgetary resources and thus have no accessibility measures at all for people with disabilities.
After explaining these concerns, we would like to turn to recommendations.
Our recommendations are treaty bodies and OHCHR should guarantee the preservation of CSO engagement opportunities during the liquidity crisis and ensure that where in person meetings cannot be held, alternative modalities are systematically provided rather than canceled.
All treaty bodies should commit to publishing at the earliest possible stage, a year round indicative schedule of state reviews, drawing on the practices of CTO and CRPD, even where details remain tentative, provided it is stated that the schedule is an estimate and may be subject to change.
To this aim, we encourage OHCHR to support treaty bodies in establishing of a consistent year round solution applicable across all treaty bodies.
Finally, treaty bodies with the support from OECHR should take the necessary steps to ensure harmonization across key areas, including the shifting, including the implementation of the simplified reporting procedure as a default reporting method, the handling of reprisals, and the implementation of the Disaba guidelines, as well as ensuring formal civil society spaces before all treaty bodies.
I will turn to my colleague Roland to share our comments on reforms.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you very much, Ron.
Ugh, if you can bear with us, then we'll continue that statement.
Now we will be commenting on the proposals for the reform.
We Tbinet International, IRCT and ISHR welcome the WCHA working paper on enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the human rights treaty body system.
We are supportive of reforms that strengthen the systems in terms of impact, predictability, and accessibility, including for CSOs and NHIs.
A predictable review calendar based on the agreed HRS cycle is essential to the effective functioning of the treaty body system.
Putting in place the predictable calendar will envolve much needed clarity for all stakeholders, as well as providing predictability for forward looking allocation of resources.
However, we are concerned that under current meeting time constraints, establishing the HR cycle will not be possible in practice without accompanying structural reforms, including digitalization and further harmonization.
Undermining one of the central objective of the reform process, which is ensuring predictability and timeliness of state reviews.
So now, I will speak about the clustered treaty body dialogue model.
So we are open to the exploration of new modalities for state dialogue and to exploring some kind of clustering.
We see value in efforts to enhance coherence, efficiency, and predictability across the system, but we believe it is critical to make sure that discussions around clustering are guided by the following principles.
While clustering may allow for more consistency and complementarity within the treaty body system, and therefore reducing duplication and inconsistencies, treaty body specificity, Um, cohesion and consistency within each committee should be secured, as well as the preservation of geographical diversity, gender balance, and thematic expertise in the composition of panels, ensuring representation from diverse legal, social, cultural and religious backgrounds.
Any clustering arrangements should not result in a reduction of civil society access or participation in the treatability system.
We suggest that any move towards cluster dialogue models being formed by consultations with all stakeholders, including CSOs and be introduced gradually with a pilot phase and clear evaluation criteria before any system wide implementation.
In this regard, we look forward to receiving further information on the various options under consideration, including their operationalization, resource requirements, and associated costs.
We now turn to Elena for the next segment.
From the IMCT member of DVnet.
Continuing with the comments related to the proposals for reform made by mentioned working paper, I will focus on the aspect of the decentralization.
We support for the exploration of regionalized modalities for treat body work, provided that such approaches are guided by predictability, accessibility, inclusivity, independence, and safety.
Lessons learned from past experiences should be carefully assessed, including what has and has not worked in decentralized formats, considering the added value of Geneva as an international hub, including in relation to safety and access for experts, civil society organizations, N HRIs rights holders and victims and survivors.
The assumption that mere geographical closeness enhances participation cannot be taken for granted and each country's situation should be considered.
Any process to design and implement the decentralization of treaty body work, particularly regarding core functions such as state reviews should be informed by meaningful and inclusive civil society participation.
Civil society, as has already been discussed and raised today by the chair, plays a vital role in ensuring the effectiveness and the legitimacy and the accountability of treaty body processes.
That's why this is very important for us.
Just in terms of key considerations, also to guide this week's discussions on these topics.
For us, decentralization should be guided by ensuring that the universal character of treaty bodies is preserved.
Including through diverse and geographical balanced treaty body membership in any regionalized modalities as already outlined by Ron.
It should also strive to preserve the unity, coherence and consistency of treaty body jurisprudence, working methods and practices, and it should maintain and could only work according to our perception or up until now with a strong centralized coordination and support structure from the OHHS Secretariat to ensure consistency and effective implementation of any regionalized modalities.
Um, it should also guarantee meaningful, safe, and inclusive participation of civil society and other stakeholders, including through both in person and hybrid engagement opportunities.
That is that we need to ensure that any decentralization process enhances rather than limits access to treaty body processes for rights holders, CSOs and other stakeholders.
Of course, it should also ensure that risks of reprisals, targeting and surveillance of rights holders is prevented.
Um, and also ensuring accessibility and equitable participation is key, and that includes addressing availability of business through agreements with host countries, reasonable travel costs and the specific access needs of persons with disabilities, including support to CRPD committee members, and provision of reasonable accommodation to civil society participants, and it should ensure predictability and transparency regarding the planning, the scheduling, and conduct of treatable activities carried out under regionalized or deccentralized arrangements.
Based on these considerations, we would support piloting more regional or decentralized initiatives.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I'm going to turn to Ana Karen from organized TB net.
Anna, please.
It's a joint statement.
She will speak on the digitalization of pretty body processes aspects.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm Anna Carn from Amnesty International, and I'll continue the third part of our comments on the OHHR working paper on reforms relating to digitalization of treaty body processes.
We would say that we support proposals to simplify state party reporting through an integrated multilingual online submissions platform.
We understand that this can reduce administrative burdens, costs, and translation requirements and improve efficiency in the reporting process.
However, we would like to emphasize the importance of transparency and accessibility of such platforms.
In particular, we consider that all submissions and updates should be publicly available.
Changes or updates to state submissions should be clearly trackable.
Clear deadlines should ensure that civil society and other stakeholders have sufficient time to review and respond to information submitted by states.
We also support the proposal by the High Commissioner to strengthen transparency in the election of treaty body members through improved online application systems.
And I would pass on to the last partner in our statement, ISHR for the final comments.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I'm Rd Davayk from the International Service for Human Rights, and I will conclude our joint statement by speaking on funding and enabling conditions.
TBNet Amnesty International, IRCT and ISHR stress that treaty body reforms must be matched by adequate and sustainable financing in line with states obligations under the treaties that they have ratified.
We wanted to highlight some key recommendations in closing.
First, states should ensure that the treaty body system is adequately and predictably financed through the UN regular budget.
Second, states should provide a clear mandate for dedicated funding for hybrid modalities to support meaningful participation of stakeholders, including civil society organizations.
Third, states should identify and mobilize the allocation of resources essential to establishing digitization tools, including accessible submission platforms and case management systems as part of treaty body strengthening.
We end by highlighting that the treaty body system is being steadily weakened by the financial and operational crisis.
Urgent measures are needed, which includes states reaffirming political and financial support for the system.
We also look forward to hearing any updates on how the discussed reform objectives, short and long term, will be funded.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
You are very well organized.
The interventions is very impressive.
I just want to make sure that we will emphasize the importance of civil society engagement when we have a meeting with the state parties.
This obviously we will point it out.
Yes, please.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I also had some points even though we signed with the joint statement.
But yeah, my name is Maevri and I'm with the IRC, the International Rehabilitation Council for torture Victims.
Thank you very much for this opportunity and I want to reflect that, of course, we acknowledge that you have been working under challenging conditions over the past two years and so I just wanted to really highlight the greatness of the continuation of the reviews in this difficult environment.
Um, I wanted to add some comments to what my colleagues have shared about the reform proposal.
As IRC, we have engaged with the treaty body system and in particular with the committee against torture for over 20 years, and we support our members in advocating to the committee against torture, particularly on topics related to rehabilitation and reparations.
We have seen that some of the members have really progressed on the national context have really progressed based on the recommendations and the opportunities that the treaty body system provides in this fora.
My comments to the proposals are centered around three topics, the cost analysis or the need for transparent cost analysis of the implications and also the logistical implications first.
Also the risk of loss of expertise from the members with the clustered system, and lastly, the participation of civil society.
On the cost and logistics implications, I would like to know that the proposal provides for an ambitious functioning in terms of logistic and expenses, but it still indicates in the paper that the cost implications need to be studied further.
I actually had a question to know if any progress had been made in testing the cost implications for this reform.
And did you find that, in the positive, did you find that the proposals were effectively leading to saving expenses? That's the first question.
The second on the risk of loss of expertise, the difference from the UPR universal P review, the treat body system is really built around the idea of expertiveness and participation of skilled experts both from the UN, from the retired, from the committees, but also from the member states when they come during the reviews.
This is something really important to yield to actionable recommendations.
I really wanted to share one of our concerns related to the reform and to make sure that the reform could ensure that the distinct expertise and normative mandates of each treaty body was preserved and to know if experts from multiple committees engage jointly with states inor dialogues, well, any safeguards have been taken relating to this.
Also, how can we ensure or how will it be ensured that states delegations are able to engage in a meaningful dialogue? The third points relating to the participation of civil society.
Well, as I said at the beginning, we are really grateful for this opportunity that we have to engage with the committee members and with the treaty body system.
But we have also been able to provide technical support to a lot of NGOs, to members, to centers of rehabilitation that provide their meaningful input during the sessions.
Um, we are wondering how this will be continued if the localizations are well shared among different regional hubs as the proposals prescribes for, because as we function, we have well functioning in Geneva, which we know and which allows us for more predictability and more easible enforcement.
So Yeah, just to make sure that if the reviews continue to different places, different herbs, some guarantees and safeguards will be provided for civil society to be able to meaningfully engage over there as well.
Then I just had a last point on the platform for the nomination of experts.
We really welcome this initiative.
I think there is also a big opportunity here for civil society to engage and to be involved in the nomination, to share the candidacy and everything, but we need to make sure that there is enough transparency in order for this to be possible.
My question was, will you ensure that transparency is guaranteed for the platform of experts nomination? Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Yes, please.
Thank you.
My name is Valentina Colo and I'm a senior advisor at the Association for the Prevention of Torture, APT.
Thank you very much for inviting us.
I would like first to start to acknowledge that APT shares many of the concerns and recommendation by the other NGOs present today.
I would just like to add a few points from our perspective and I will be, of course, more than happy then to share more detailed also recommendation in writing.
Uh, from the APT perspective, one thing that looking at the working paper and so on is that, of course, we support all the efforts put and we are also very much willing to engage and explore further opportunities for reform.
Our approach in a nutshell is indeed that effectiveness and protection are important, not merely efficiency.
And the second point is that we would like also to emphasize in particular how any reform in particular should take into account the specificities of the UCAT and the torture prevention framework, which is quite peculiar in the system of treaty bodies.
As we all know, the UN subcommittee on Prevention of Torture operates slightly different than other treaty bodies also in terms of, you know, um, how they engage with states and so on.
Of course, one of the main concern that we had due to the liquidity crisis that we saw a radical drop down of resources for the SPT to carry out country visits.
Um, the question of resources, of course, remains one of the key concerns from APT.
In terms of reform and so on, I think we should in any case, try to, um, try to find a way that any reform doesn't flatten indeed OCT preventive, confidential, and MPM linked model to a generic model that applies across all treaty bodies.
Also that applies, of course, to reforms addressing decentralization, regionalization, the promotion of digital digitalization of the system and so on.
Just again to flag that torture prevention work is also very particular in itself, so we would like to really to see that also more reflected in any reforms.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Is there any other Yes, please? Thank you very much.
Felix is being a very gentleman.
Thank you all.
Thank you, first of all, for hosting the meeting.
We very much appreciate the space for consultation.
Gan, we represents over 100 national human rights institutions.
Unfortunately, we did not have the sufficient time to coordinate and consult our members on the three proposals on the OCHR paper.
However, we will share some observations with you today.
First, on the reform and the UNAT, we support efficiency, coordination, and sustainability, but sustainability and efficiency is not an end in itself.
The test for any reform is, does it preserve or enhance the protection on the ground? For national actors, specifically, what is really key is ensuring remote engagement, predictable review calendars, stakeholder opportunities for engagement, and reprisal protection channels.
These must not be casualties of the crisis that we are under.
NHRI are part of the solution.
In a constrained system, the Geneva National Bridge matters more and more.
NHRIS really national specificities, monitor follow up to concluding observations and bring your work to parliaments, courts and communities.
We really encourage you to use this partnership systematically, especially in the follow up procedures that are still underutilized.
But NHRS cannot do this work if they don't have sufficient resources and if they're not independent.
Concluding observations on Paris principle compliant NHRSE are among your most powerful tools.
Please continue this practice, and again, we will support with any information that we can share.
On the harmonization, Gan welcomes the chair's commitment to harmonizing working methods.
Predictable harmonized ener rise is itself an efficiency measure, lowering transaction costs for everyone, and we encourage concrete steps at this meeting toward a more common cross committee approach without diluting the specificities of each committee.
And lastly, states carry the ultimate responsibility.
Implementing obligations sustain, including financially, the system they've created, and we believe that our role is to support them and remind them with one voice that protection cannot run on areas.
Ganri and the tribe members remain fully committed with chairs, with OCHR civil society, colleagues and states.
The system emerges the aim is that the system emerges not intact, but that it's more accessible and closer to the people it serves.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Felix.
Thank you for the opportunity of this exchange.
It's a pleasure to be here, Felix Kishmer of the Geneva Human Rights Hub.
At the outset, let me say maybe two things.
First of all, just to underline what has been said by NGO colleagues and just to share those views, even if we're not a co signatory officially of that statement, but really just to underline that without now repeating it in my statement and also to welcome the OHCHR paper and the proposals contained therein.
We think that the regionalized cluster treaty body dialogues the integrated multilingual online report submission platform and obviously also the treaty body members online application platform are very important steps and reform proposals made by the High Commissioner and very worthy of the discussion in your chairs meeting.
We have also gathered some experience, including with the colleagues of TBNet in piloting activities such as a platform for enhancing transparency in the election process of treaty body members.
We're also, of course, always happy to share the lessons that we draw from those pilots and other informal activities.
But most importantly, I would like to speak about and thank those treaty body chairs, vice chairs, or also colleagues who have been with us at the Rk retreat just ten days ago.
Thank you for the participation in an informal activity, which obviously puts a lot of strain on your time management, working already as pro bono experts in that system.
We very much appreciated the openness and the availability of representatives from all treaty bodies actually to join this informal meeting, which discussed, among other things, also the High Commissioner's paper, but also those reform options more broadly.
For us, there were very important takeaway points that I would like to mention here in this meeting also to encourage further deliberation among the chairs of the outcomes of this informal meeting that was held ten days ago.
I think what we saw in those discussion was also a confirmation that inaction is not an option.
We were really happy to see also that in the beginning of the meeting, we were able to, um, at least identify common aims and the direction of travel as we called it among the participants, which are points that I think are also valuable for further reflection in the TRS meeting.
I also brought a working draft document with me that I'm happy to leave for you.
Just to mention and to underline that obviously a common aim, participants did identify a sustainable, efficient and impactful treaty body system.
Again, colleagues mentioned that the reforms and all those options we're discussing are not aims or in themselves, but really a way to get to a regular universal, predictable treaty body engagement and a reliable forward looking budget.
Point also that was shared, I think at that meeting was the necessity to ensuring a meaningful participation by all stakeholders, as was pointed out by colleagues, including civil society, national human rights institutions, and rights holders and that for that actually regionalized and accessible dialogues might be an option to get closer to that aim.
The reduction of Reporting Board was also discussed at the meeting which actually united treaty body members, civil society, state representatives, and Gnry representative.
As those points I think are very important.
A is the focus on the implementation of the cyclic nature of treaty body engagement.
The direction of travel that I mentioned before is really something that I'd like to again bring to the attention here and I also ask your consideration whether that might be something that you also could potentially underline and reinforce in the outcome of your chairperson meeting now at the end of this week.
Because I think what we saw there was the need to move forward in all those areas, digitalization, regionalization, and scheduling and clustering.
While obviously that meeting being informal, first of all, but also having all stakeholders there could not come to very direct and fleshing out the specific proposals.
I think what is important also when we look at the further actions in this year, also towards the resolution at the third committee is really to have a strong statement from all stakeholders towards the direction of travel, where do we want to get it? Also for that, I think that confirming and supporting the options laid out by the High Commissioner are very important even though if actually how to do that might be still specific areas to go.
To close my statement with this, I'd like to just also underline again our commitment to help the system, help you also the chairpersons any kind of informal piloting of activities that you might be interested in in order to see what has been said, also tests actually what the options might be, what things would look like in practice, and to learn from that before you take any official next step in the official cycles.
That's what I wanted to share from my side and of course, happy to give any further details as far as Chatham House retreat allows on the outcomes of the regi meeting if that's of interest.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I want to remind you that you have a half an hour to go.
As you know, we cannot go over 6:00 P.M.
I believe there are a lot of things we want to discuss between the civil society organizations and treaty bodies.
I just mention one thing before we open the floor to chairs.
I always feel very happy and good to talk to civil society organizations and national human institutions.
I feel that you are the real friends of treaty parties, so I'm relaxed in a sense.
But unfortunately, both you and us are not in a position to provide resources and we're in a position to make a real decision.
Ironically, you know, we are created by the state parties, but state parties without state parties resolution or input, we're not able to function.
So that's the dilemma we have.
But still, in terms of the questions about the budget and costing details, We don't have that either, so we are on the same page.
We just started discussing this morning, as you know, and as you can guess, each has a different views and different members and there's a lot we have to discuss.
But I can make sure that I will do my best to collect all the ideas and to be productive and constructive.
By the end of the first meeting, I hope we can have some good news for you.
Anyway, I'll stop here and open the floor, Madam Haidar.
Thank you.
Thank you very much Chair and thanks to all the representative, not only for their presentation now, but for their caring and interaction with our treaty body throughout our work.
I just want to say that we feel in the recent two to three years, that engagement with CSO was reduced for several reasons and that is also something that you have noted, although most of you are Geneva based, which is already a lucky thing.
But we're talking about CSO who come from countries and are not able, first because of the predictability, the calendar, the fact that now we are constantly not sure, unaware, even if we are trying in CD to put name of country and say to be confirmed, but at least to highlight so that CSO can get ready for their input as much as they can.
But I feel sometimes that it's horrible to say that I regret a little bit the COVID times where we were allowed to have hybrid meeting.
We were allowed to hear from people, and we are told now that this is only possible when delegation request, but nothing else is possible in terms of hybrid.
I think the involvement and the meeting time that we dedicate, I don't know each treaty body has their own way.
But for instance, for us in CD, We dedicate public time for everyone on the first day of the week before the dialogues during that week, and then we have lunchtime confidential briefing with CSO.
This has been an extremely important tool.
It doesn't even have interpreter.
It's really completely protected environment, and And we are lucky because we have a network of NGO that facilitates a little bit the joining.
How do you suggest with the modern technology, with the new things, how do you recommend that we can reach out despite the constraints of the UN system and hybrid? How can we reach out more for CSOs and get them more involved, continue to be involved in our work? Then I think a The issue of the Rig retreat and the paper of the High Commissioner has been addressed quite extensively.
We can come back to it ourselves.
The last point I want to make on NHRI and I thank Gan Hari for being here.
We have made some progress in CEDAW, and we are doing much better because at the very beginning, CEDAW was not really inclusive of NHRI and now we are But at the same time, I think that gunnery role in Geneva, we used to feel it more concretely, maybe because we had three sessions.
Now I lost touch with everything that is being done through gunnery.
Maybe we can revive this relationship because I think it's extremely important.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I'll give the floor to the chair of St Juan Pablo.
Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us and for bringing your ideas as we discuss possible reforms to the treaty body system and this pilot initiative is very heavily focused on reporting procedures.
I would be particularly interested in hearing from you on three issues.
First, how do we ensure that participation remains meaningful? And safe because if we move to regions and particular countries, we might face also situations where reprisals are more frequent under any future model that is implemented.
Second, how can we better involve you in implementation and follow up between review cycles? And third, what elements of the current treaty body system should absolutely not be lost because they are essential to accountability and meaningful scrutiny.
Please consider the strength of treaty specific scrutiny and the particularities, or should I say the differences of the mandates of bodies like the SBT or my committee that are oriented to prevention, to urgent intervention, to protection of people.
Because the success of any reform should ultimately be measured not only by efficiency games, but also by whether it improves implementation and strengthens engagement of the victims and the organizations that accompany them.
Those are my three questions to you.
Thank you very much.
I'll give it to Flora Sophie.
Lady.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you very much for your views and comments.
I really would like to highlight how important for the CRC's work is the engagement of CSOs.
First of all, of course, our major partner in this regard is the Child Rights Connect and Agnes has mentioned several issues, but we have also those who engage with us from the ground.
Of course, Felix and the Geneva Academy supports in broader framework of the treaty bodies meeting, and this is really very much appreciated as well.
Not only with the treaty body members are affected, but this liquidity crisis and all these issues affect, first of all, the CSOs on the ground, and of course, this is very much regrettable.
Then it affects our work as well because we have this uncertainty, do not get the information in time and all this cycle is like disturbing, at the end of the day, our constituents.
I would like to reiterate and underline how important it is for us to have children engaged with the CRC through the NGOs.
This is maybe the more specific part of the work of those CSOs which engage with children on the ground and bring their opinion to us because we directly do not have this possibility, of course.
I also would like to mention how important it was the joint statement on A child rights was mentioned today by different UN agencies.
In this, we could engage the CSOs, the children from 60 countries of the world exactly through the support of CSO.
This is very important.
But my concern is also what I think Juan Pablo has mentioned.
The issue of security and engagement of CSOs, if we go this path of regionalization.
Here in Switzerland, we know that once we are engaged with CSOs, this is confidential and without security issues for the CSOs.
But how it is in the countries where these issues are not guaranteed and you think this will affect the engagement with the committee and how accessible then for them will be the committees or treaty bodies in general.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I'll give the floor to Mr.
Fresheri followed by miss Kim.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
And also, I join my colleagues in extending a very warm welcome to the members of civil society and also to reiterate how much we appreciate having these conversations with you, but also your role in our work and I hope it's only mutually reinforcing in the sense that we support each other's work.
No without accident, but it is always on the first meeting of our sessions that we hold dialogues with civil society and that underscores the importance that we ascribe to this collaboration.
So thank you so much for being here today so far for sharing your comments, proposals, and positions.
I had a one comment and also one question or a couple of questions for Felix since he mentioned since he was talking about the proposals coming from the Rig retreat.
The comments you know, Hearing a lot of these arguments for change and for reforms become at some point, they become at some point saturated and they are a bit hollow as well.
So I'm trying to look for something more original when it comes to the proposals that are made.
Why do I say that? Because often if you frame something as a question of choice between either for change or against change, the impression that one gives off is as if though we are in the treaty bodies are existing change and everybody else around us is for change and change is good.
Actually, sometimes change is not that good and so it's our job to resist it and to fight it.
And so, you know, you know, framing is always so, you know, we need to constantly reform or we need to change because, you know, we can stay still, you know, doesn't really answer the problem.
And, you know, at my day and age, you know, I've heard a lot of all sorts of actions being justified on the need for change without actually any meaningful change actually happening.
So Secondly, also, In the last 35 years since I turned 16, I've been since 1991 and onwards, I've been hearing every six months where every year the term reform being thrown here and there to justify all sorts of actions and reform this reform that constantly.
There's a bit of a fatigue with using these terms.
And on the specific proposal about originalization, what I wanted to get and please help me form a better understanding is what is a problem that you are trying to solve with that proposal.
So what are we trying to fix? What is the ultimate constraint or objective that you are trying to attain by that? Because I said very clearly is that two things.
One is that the drive towards greater regionalization leads to more normative as well as institutional fragmentation, and for a universal slash multilateral system, that's not always a complimentary step to take.
We are not I speak also here on behalf of the committee.
We are not against raising the profile of regions or elevating the role that regions play in the multilateral or universal system of norms that we protect.
But it shouldn't come at the cost of undermining the or multilateral role that we perform here.
That is one.
Secondly, is that one specific outcome that leads from this regionalization effort is that, again, it cuts down or undermines the work that we do at the multilateral slash universal level, as well as leading to this greater fragmentation and relative reason data that comes with it.
Long story short, what I would like to get some clarity more is, what are the objectives of having regional dialogues instead of having the dialogues are the universal place.
What is the problem that you ultimately are trying to fix here? Thanks so much.
I'm sorry if I sound a little bit too aggressive, but it's always in the spirit of frankness.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Miss Kim, please.
Thank you so much, Chair.
First, I would like to express the committee deep appreciation for civil society organization, National Human Rights Institution and academy, especially the Organization of the Person with Disability include the International Disability Alliance.
The CLP Committee Leal relies greatly on your contribution.
You are especially important for the situation of persons with disabilities in world, internal conflict, hunger, extreme poverty, and for persons with disability in Pacific Island countries and other Lord under resources context.
Without the support of a civil society, including International disability, the Alliance and many other partners, the participation of persons with disability from these contexts to Uu often be impossible.
Your work gives life and breath to the work of all the committees, and we are deeply grateful.
At the same time, as we mark the 20th anniversary of the CLPD, I would like to make an important request.
Disability inclusion should not be left only to organization of persons with disabilities or disability specific organization.
It must be a shared responsibility of civil society, national Human Rights institution, academy, and all human rights actors.
Disability is often forgotten or treated as a separate issue when persons with disabilities and their representative organization are not present.
For this reason, an intersectional approach is essential, disability inclusion should be integrated into your work and all other area of human rights.
I therefore respect Please ask all partners, N HRI, USP and Academy, even under difficult circumstance, that the leave with disability as side or treating it as secondary.
Please keep disability inclusion within your analysis, advocacy programming, and partnership.
I also hope that cooperation between the committee and the National Human Rights institutions will become stronger, more regular, and more active.
In particular, I hope that the disability related working group within G and national human rights institutions working on disability rights will engage more closely and regularly with the CIPD committee.
N HRI are essential partner in monitoring implementation, supporting follow up to the committee's recommendations and ensuring that the Voices of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations are reflected at the national level.
Regarding online and hybrid participation, I must express concern that the discontinuation of such modernly ties for civil society organization by conference services in Geneva since January 2025 has created a serious barrier to the participation of organization of persons with disability.
For those CLP committee, it is a particularly serious concern.
Under the convention, the participation of the person with disabilities through their representative organization is not optional.
It is a core principle and a legal obligation under Article 4 0.3 and the 33.3 of the CLPD Convention.
In particular, the committee has had to organize online consultation with civil society organizations and organizations of persons with disability outside the official meeting time, open without interpretation in other working languages of the committee.
While this effort has been necessary to preserve the participation.
They cannot be considered inadequate or sustainable solution.
The current situation has not yet been corrected.
As a result, organization of persons with disabilities, especially those with limited financial listers, those based outside the Geneva, and those facing accessibility, mobility, communication or separate related barriers may be excluded from the meaningful participation in the treaty body process.
I would therefore strongly encourage the least duration of accessible online and hybrid models for consultation with civil society organization, Organization of persons with Disability National Human Rights institution and academy, including during this interval between sessions.
Such modality should include interpretation, captioning, sign language interpretation, as platforms accessible information, and reasonable accommodation where required.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
I invite the chair of the SPT, Madame Romeo.
Thank you, Chair and thank you so much for sharing your valuable insights with us today.
I'm very sorry about the sitting arrangement.
That means that we're giving you our back.
I first wanted to highlight for the subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, the engagement with civil society, both here in Geneva during our sessions and especially on the ground during our visits is very essential for our torture prevention work.
It informs our visits.
It helps us identify risks, and it also strengthens the implementation of our recommendations.
I also wanted to thank the Geneva Human Rights Hub in Switzerland for providing an important informal space through the Riga retreat to start discussions that can now inform the exchanges we're having in this chairs meeting regarding the High Commissioner's working paper.
Finally, I wanted to echo a point that was raised by the APT and also referred to by the chair of Mr.
Albin, which is how to ensure that any proposals or reform take into account the specificities of distinct mandates of a few treaty bodies, including the one I chair, the subcommittee on Prevention of Torture.
This is something that I also raised earlier today with the High Commissioner, highlighting the need to include also the predictability of our preventive visits and not just the predictability of reporting.
But this also goes beyond visits and also includes the unique role that national preventive mechanisms, similar to the role that NHRIs can play in implementation and follow up of recommendations.
As discussions move forward, I believe there's great value in ensuring that the experience of the SBT in preventive work with its country visits and cooperation with national actors, especially through NPMs inform the broader conversations on implementation and impact.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Maybe last, Madam Sarand from Sesa Chair.
I would like to, first of all, extend a very warm welcome to all the CSO representatives here and the national NHR as well.
Some of the interventions had resonance with me, particularly questions that were posed just now about whether the issues of the current crisis, liquidity, et cetera, has been raised with the state parties and that the treaty bodies specificities and whether they are, guided by preservation of geographical representation and diversity, the importance of emphasizing transparency and whether reforms are matched by financing.
I think that's an important point that was made, and of course, another intervention we spoke about taking into account the specificities of each treaty body.
And finally, of course, the NHRI's representative saying that it's ultimately the state parties responsibility to work a system that they have created.
That said, I just thought I will also use this opportunity to convey on behalf of my committee, our very deep appreciation for the work being done by civil society and the inputs they provide during state party constructive dialogues.
I think there is an element of trust that has been built with the civil society and which is why we look forward to our engagement.
We are mindful that you do so under grave constraints, including the risk of reprisals, and yet you do so because of your commitment.
I just thought I'd let you know that in our committee, and our engagement with state parties.
We always make it a point to point out the protection of civil society representatives and that no action should be taken in terms of reprisals against them.
This is a point which I wanted to emphasize.
Just as it is important for treaty bodies to maintain their integrity, their independence, and the specificity of the covenant that they govern, I would say it is equally important for the civil society representatives to also uphold and maintain their integrity, their independence, and their specificity.
Finally, a question specifically to Felix regarding the rigoryt that he spoke about and the Geneva Human Rights Hub proposals in comparison to the OHCHR booking paper.
I saw a lot of convergence, in fact, a similarity on the proposals on both sides, the Secretariat Office of the High Commissioner's proposals as well as those made by the Geneva Hub.
I wanted to know, are there any divergences and if so, could you kindly point them out? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Cook.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Chair gives me 1 minute, so I will be very.
The committee served was very appreciative of the contribution that the civil society and the NH and HRI are doing for us the contribution, we rely a lot on the information that they provide for us.
In fact, I think SR recognized the contribution of the civil society quite early because we have taken the decision to give the civil society a specific time to, during our sessions, official time that is.
And also, incidentally, it was a civil society organization which has taken the initiative to broadcast our public meetings for the first time, which later became the general policy of the UN broadcasting system.
It was a Japanese Japanese civil society organization.
So yes, we benefit a lot from it.
We're grateful to civil society and the Gary, of course.
We have to keep this positive attitude towards each other all the time.
We have developed the surge has developed a very comprehensive policy of warning the states parties against retaliation for civil society, and so on.
Now the question I will raise is this.
I have heard an emphasis made on harmonization and simplified reporting procedures.
I would like to really know what is the added value for the work of the civil society uh, the degree with which the degree to which committees harmonize their working methods.
Is this also the civil society organizations who are interested in that know that there is a limit to harmonization.
I mean, there is a limit that CRT can harmonize with SPT.
So giving I mean, being recognizant of that fact.
What is the use of pushing this rather empty concept of harmonization all the time? That was my question.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I see we have only 4 minutes left, but I know that you are very coordinated team, so please give us a brief reply.
Yes, please.
How much.
We have 3 minutes left and we didn't manage to agree, so we are not maybe as coordinated as you expected this.
But just going back to the chair of set when it comes to how to ensure that participation remains meaningful and safe if we were to enter into this desenatization phase.
I'd say that there's some points raised already in our paper and some ideas that we can share with you in writing, but I think it's very important that some of you mentioned, strong civic space wherever this is taking place, at least for the pilot phase because without them, we will not be able to assess whether there are risks in those countries.
If civic space is very closed in those countries, I don't know.
That's that's also why you also need strong CSO engagement at a domestic level or regional level when this is thought through.
Um, second on the follow up and implementation, I mean, many committees have, of course, I mean, the priorities, the key priorities within the year.
I think that's an important part of the process.
But then I think it's also important to see how maybe media engagement can also be strengthened so that they can also feel responsible for disseminating and some committees have experience on this.
I also think it's important to maybe, um, encourage, I mean, I know that treatable bodies don't do calls for inputs such maybe but through the OHR or a call for inputs on the collection of impacts of follow up implementation work because I think you do some, of course, collection of impacts, but I think we have many impacts and it would be maybe good to recollect domestic level some of these impacts in terms of institutional and legal reforms.
Um, in terms of what elements should absolutely don't be lost.
I don't have the legitimacy to and I think it's of course, a very important and complex discussion.
I mean, we would maybe not start by sharing this document with you, which already contains some I mean, some basic principles.
And just for the added value when it comes to harmonization, I think it's important to make sure that all committees attain the highest standard.
In a way that there that we strive to, for instance, when it comes to meaningful CSO participation that you know, that there is an adequate level of accessibility and inclusivity that is attained by all committees.
So I think when we talk about harmonization, we talk about making sure that there is a minimum decent reasonable, strong threshold for some of the working methods that knowing, of course, and acknowledging that each committee has, of course, its specificities, which is basically also due to, of course, the treaty in a way, of course, the different provisions within each treaty which vary, but also we still feel that, for instance, on the year round calendar or making sure that there's some predictability, for instance, we've seen that some committees do announce the upcoming countries for review, even knowing that these countries cannot be confirmed officially because of the current crisis.
But we would really encourage, for instance, also see this year round predictability, even with a disclaimer that these just an estimate which has not been conferred by states parties.
I'm sorry, guys, I hope.
I'm sorry, we cannot give you more time, but time is up, we can continue our informal dialogue after the official holly meeting ends.
I now call this meeting to an end and look forward to our discussion tomorrow.
Have a pleasant evening.
Thank you very much.