Second Inter-Committee Meeting
of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies
Geneva, Switzerland, 18-20 June 2003

Submission by International Women's Rights Action Watch (Asia Pacific)
"Enhancing the Effectiveness of Treaty Bodies"
19 June 2003

The International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW Asia Pacific) was set up in 1993 to work towards the realisation of the human rights of women through the use of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other international human rights instruments.

The cross-cutting premise justifying IWRAW Asia Pacific's past, present and future areas of work is the need for the mobilisation of women's groups at the local, national, regional and international levels to draw accountability from their governments on the domestic application of human rights standards.

Over the past ten years, IWRAW Asia Pacific has built up a significant presence in 12 countries of South and Southeast Asia with some work being carried out in East Asia, the Pacific and Central Asia. The work has focused on building capacity of women's groups to utilise the CEDAW Convention and its norms as a tool for establishing the fact of discrimination against women through research-based advocacy, for gaining recognition of their right to equality at the national level, for claiming such rights calling on State obligation under this Convention and for participating in the review process in New York thus contributing to the creation of evolving jurisprudence and the elaboration of norms for standard setting at the local levels. The programme has also worked with several governments in the region enhancing their capacity to fulfill their obligations under the treaty. Over these years, IWRAW Asia Pacific has played a significant role in bridging the gap between the promise of women's rights and their actual realisation. Our work in the region has resulted in the setting up of NGO CEDAW monitoring networks in the countries of Asia and the creation of tools for assessing fulfillment of State obligation. This work has been carried out through a project called Facilitating the Fulfillment of State Obligation to Women's Equality.

Since 1997, the organisation has also coordinated human rights work at the international level bringing women from all parts of the world to the review process in New York. This project is called From Global to Local and links the reality of women's lives as experienced by them to international advocacy. This aspect of work is of great significance as it helps to complete the cycle of reporting at the international level linking it to an aware constituency of citizenry who can hold governments accountable for implementing the recommendation of the treaty body at the national level and in fact where appropriate collaborate on the follow up.

We hope to extend this project to other treaty bodies. From 2003 onwards, IWRAW Asia Pacific seeks to facilitate women's participation in the sessions of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), the Committee on Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Human Rights Committee (HRC). We believe our work must look at the interdependence of human rights and the interconnectedness of the mechanisms for its fulfillment.

Our interest in this meeting comes from our experience in the work we have been carrying hither to.

Proposals for Strengthening Treaty Bodies

In addition to the proposals made in the NGO non-paper on "Treaty Body Reform following the UN Secretary-General's Proposals" which we support (and signed on to), we wish to elaborate on and provide additional proposals for the consideration of the treaty bodies, especially those regarding enhancing the effectiveness of treaty monitoring. In particular, we draw attention to the fact that reporting at the international level and implementation at the national level is an interlinked process and thus, in our intervention we would like to focus on the following issues.

1. Technical Services and Capacity Building

Technical services must be provided with a full knowledge of the political situation in a country and the reasons both technical and political as to why a States party is not reporting. From our experience in Asia we have seen that often times, a States party is unclear on the purpose of the report and its role on treaty implementation. They do not realise that the report can be used to plan the implementation of the treaty, to record progress, and to move on to further implementation in a cyclical manner. For example, the CEDAW, CRC and CESCR Conventions require policy decisions pertaining to interventions in development processes, the allocation of appropriate resources in relation to these interventions, monitoring of effectiveness of interventions and progressive gains made, and trouble shooting to ensure de facto realisation of rights. This would require the setting of standards based on human rights norms, identification of base line status, setting of benchmarks and related indicators to measure progress. These requirements were also mentioned by some members at this meeting.

However, since there is seldom a conscious effort to 'adopt measures to give effect to the obligations under the treaty', report writing becomes a mere procedural exercise. Also, since efforts have not been made right at the start to collect appropriate disaggregated data or even comparative data (the need for which was also mentioned at this meeting), the report writing becomes a tedious and shallow exercise. There are many instances were consultants were hired a year or so before the report is due and the various bureaucrats in charge of implementing the Convention have no clue as to what goes in the report. At the political level, high ranking bureaucrats take no ownership of the substance of the report or the commitments for action outlined by consultants in the report. The report should serve a very substantive purpose that provides a framework and guidance for fulfilling State obligation from the perspective of an aware State. This can only happen if there are appropriate data bases developed to ensure monitoring of the effect of the treaties. Specifically, these data bases must be continuously updated and actual monitoring of gains must be carried out. The periodic reports will then reflect its findings.

Technical assistance services must therefore be cognizant of the fact that failure to report may not be due so much as not knowing how to write a report but more because of not having clarity on the content of the rights concerned, not knowing what this report is all about and not having continuously gathered the kind of data needed to write the report. The reasons can also be political. Where CEDAW is concerned, ensuring equality may become politically hazardous for the regime in power. Furthermore, technical assistance services must take into consideration structural problems as every sector of Government has a responsibility to implement the Convention. A multidisciplinary approach and structural connections are needed for the purpose of standard setting, ensuring consistency, monitoring and data collection. Hardly any State has achieved such intersectoral cooperation. Technical assistance must consider all these impediments and help to find solutions and not focus only on the end product, the report.

Detailed guidelines on the kinds of advisory services and how to access them must therefore be provided by the OHCHR to State parties. In particular ,capacity building is needed to help States set up appropriate data bases and monitoring mechanisms. Advisory services on the need to promote national level initiatives to strengthen local capacity and the creation of a pool of resources (human and technical) at the local level is necessary. Advisory services must focus also on addressing the need to promote national level activities that can be sustained.

Furthermore, technical assistance and capacity building must be provided to partners within and outside government bodies. It must also be noted that technical assistance will only contribute to strengthening institutional capacities if the OHCHR takes a proactive approach as to the involvement of all government branches in the preparation of the State party report and in the implementation of its Concluding Comments. Lastly, technical assistance focusing on the follow up to the Concluding Comments, e.g. assistance on how to draft policy and action plans after the issuance of Concluding Comments and how to measure its progress, must be provided to enable the States to move forward. In this regard, a more holistic approach to follow up activities may be pursued. Rather than focusing on one treaty, action plans drafted may consider all the treaties ratified to save on resources expended for monitoring and implementation. This may be the basis of further technical assistance.

2. Quality of the report

It is important for treaty bodies to assess their effectivity and sustainability over and above the reporting process. Reporting is not the end goal but only a tool for the monitoring of the implementation of the Convention. Reports that have insufficient or inadequate data and are submitted for compliance sake must be discouraged as they undermine the treaty system in the same manner as non-reporting. Thus although the threat of a consideration without a report may produce a report from the State party, its quality must be ensured, e.g. at least a list of questions must pursue the information required with an appropriate deadline set for its submission to the Committees. We note that some Committees apply this already and urge the others to consider this proposal.

In some instances, when faced with a report that has insufficient data, the treaty body concerned has requested the States party to provide this information in the next report. This process is unsatisfactory, as several years will go by before the information is received losing much ground and timeliness in implementing the obligations. Shorter dead lines for receipt of such information needs to be set with appropriate arrangements in place for receiving the information and feedback given to the State.

3. NGO Involvement in the Reporting Process and the Follow-Up

Treaty bodies should look into multiple approaches for enhancing its effectiveness and in following up its Concluding Comments. It is important to explore the possibilities of supporting processes outside of the treaty bodies and the OHCHR.

One important component to focus on is NGO participation in the treaty reporting process.

NGOs submit information to treaty bodies. These information enrich the discussion and provide an alternative source of data and analysis for the Committees. It is urged that this must not be curtailed and that guidelines need to must be developed that incorporate the best practices of treaty bodies as a standard for all treaty body processes. These guidelines should allow the widest possible incorporation of NGO expertise, information and resources into the process.

In addition to NGOs submission of information, NGOs play an important role in following up recommendations of the treaty bodies. In our experience, bringing women in to observe the CEDAW reporting process has brought positive changes. Knowing the reporting process better, that is seeing how their States are being held accountable for its international obligations, has given women NGOs a better understanding of reporting and a confidence in the CEDAW system. As a best practice of follow up, e.g. in the case of Nepal, Nepali NGOs have made a shadow report when the Government reported. The CEDAW Committee accepted their information and had a dialogue with them on the issues they have raised. Furthermore, they were present when their government reported before the CEDAW Committee and noted all their government's responses and CEDAW's comments. After the session, the Nepali NGOs went back to Nepal and used the Concluding Comments as an opening to engage their Government in a dialogue. They also used the Concluding Comments to further legitimise their claim for changes in discriminatory laws. After mobilising mass support on the need for reforms, the NGOs succeeded in amending a huge number of discriminatory provisions in the law. In this case, the CEDAW Concluding Comments played an important role as a catalyst for change.

In Sri Lanka, after the CEDAW Session, Sri Lankan NGOs had a consultation with the Government on every paragraph of the Concluding Comments. They requested their Government to discuss their plan for implementing the recommendations of the Committee and offered their expertise and resources in pursuing the plan of action. Another consultation will be schedule to measure the progress being made. This GO-NGO dialogue is important as it shows a conscious effort to pursue the Committee's recommendations as well as the building of a GO-NGO constituency on CEDAW Concluding Comments.

These cases show the importance of having a national level constituency to follow up the Concluding Comments. In this regard, NGO follow up activities must be acknowledged and supported as an important part of the follow up process. Government's openness to local promptings provides us a picture of its seriousness at treaty implementation.

NGOs not only exert pressure at the national level for treaty implementation but also provide the necessary technical assistance and expertise in reporting and implementation. Any measures looking at strengthening the treaty body system must ensure that NGOs capacity in this regard must be developed.

4. Transparency of NGO Information

On the issue of transparency and availability of information given by NGOs, it is important to establish guidelines as to when NGO information received is subject to confidentiality. In this regard, the following matters, among others, must be taken into consideration:

• the general human rights situation in the country, especially the situation of human rights defenders;
• the relationship of government with NGOs;
• the nature of the information; (Is it information of a general nature? Is it collaborative information? Are there other sources of information that affirms it? Is it an isolated case? Is it information that illustrates a pattern of violation? etc.)
• ability of the State Party to implement recommendations based on confidential information, i.e., will implementation of the treaty bodies recommendations suffer if information is not made available to the State.

5. The Usefulness of Inter-Governmental Policy Dialogues

There is a need for further inter-governmental policy dialogues on the Conventions. Governments must understand, appreciate and act on their obligations under the Conventions. It is therefore important to provide a forum for governments to exchange information, strategies, methodologies, data requirements and experiences in implementing CEDAW within their region. Such a forum can also serve to bring about peer pressure on recalcitrant States. The dialogues further aim to raise awareness about the importance of the treaty regime in general; to create clarity on key concepts and principles in relation to women's rights; to provide information exchange and technical assistance on the implementation of CEDAW and the Concluding Comments, the purpose of reporting, key elements of a State Party Report, and the Optional Protocol to CEDAW; to expound on the role of NGOs; and to identify areas for technical assistance. In particular, the dialogues must seek to bring together States which are in the same stages of implementation in relation to a treaty. NGO participation is important in this regard to pave the way for a more collaborative GO-NGO partnership.

IWRAW Asia Pacific has implemented one such a dialogue in collaboration with UNIFEM for South Asian governments and NGOs and would like to offer it as a model for other regions.

6. Interim Reports

We urge the treaty bodies to provide procedures and guidelines on factors that will trigger the process for interim reports or reports on an exceptional basis. The provision of guidelines will answer concerns on selectivity and provide an independent basis for pursuing the need to hold States accountable for gross, severe or massive violations of treaty provisions occurring in between reporting.

7. The Value of a Day of General Discussion in relation to General Comments

The practice of holding a general day of discussion on general comments is one that allows integration of perspectives not only from the different treaty bodies but also from experts, including NGOs. We propose that this practice be institutionalised also by all treaty bodies.

8. Reservations

Just as treaty bodies work for universal ratification, a joint effort must also be made for removing reservations, as well as for declaring when a reservation is not acceptable as it goes against the object and purpose of the treaty. Although recognising that States can make reservations, full implementation of the treaty must be the overarching goal.

9. Non-regression

Treaty bodies in monitoring the implementation of the Conventions encourage States not to regress. In joint coordination, harmonisation and collaboration, consensus must be woven not on the least common denominator but on the best of what each Committee has to offer. There must be a conscious effort to ensure that the most advance jurisprudence and recommendations where the mandate overlaps is adopted by all treaty bodies.

10. Consultation with NGOs Involved in Domestic Implementation

The OHCHR must include in their consultations NGOs and academic institutions that carry out programmes and activities that focus on domestic implementation of views and recommendation of the Committees. This consultation could assist the treaty bodies identify best practices and explore potential partnerships for implementation of follow up activities.

11. OHCHR and CEDAW

In carrying out technical assistance and other activities, the OHCHR must ensure that it provides sufficient resources and expertise to sustain the work of treaty bodies. In all its activities, the OHCHR must make certain that technical assistance and capacity building is extended to the implementation the CEDAW Convention even if it is based in New York and not in Geneva.

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This page was last updated on August 10, 2003

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