Effective implementation of international instruments on human rights, including reporting obligations under international instruments on human rights

Emphasizes the need to ensure financing and adequate staff and information resources for the operations of the human rights treaty bodies; reaffirms the need for human rights treaty bodies to better complement each other in their work; welcomes the continuing efforts by the human rights treaty bodies and the Secretary-General aimed at streamlining, rationalizing, rendering more transparent and otherwise improving reporting procedures; calls upon the Secretary-General to complete as soon as possible the detailed analytical study comparing the provisions of international instruments on human rights which is being prepared with a view to identifying duplication of reporting required under those instruments; requests the Secretary-General to compile in a single volume all the general guidelines regarding the form and content of reports to be submitted by States parties that have been issued by the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee against Torture; reiterates its concern about the increasing backlog of reports on the implementation by States parties of certain UN instruments on human rights; invites States parties that have been unable to comply with the requirements to submit their initial report to avail themselves of technical assistance; urges all States parties whose reports have been examined by human rights treaty bodies to provide adequate follow-up to the observations and final comments of the treaty bodies on their reports; welcomes the request of the persons chairing the human rights treaty bodies to hold an extraordinary 3-day meeting early in 1998 to pursue the reform process with the aim of improving the effective implementation of international instruments on human rights.

Adopted without vote, 70th meeting

6 p.

Adopted at the 70th plenary meeting, 12 Dec. 1997.