Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All

Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Twenty-ninth session

Summary record ( p artial )* of th e 409th meeting**

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, on Wednesday, 12 September 2018, at 3 p.m.

Chair:Mr. Tall

Contents

Organizational matters

Closure of the session

The discussion covered in the summary record began at 4.15 p.m.

Organizational matters

1.The Chair, giving an overview of the Committee’s work at its twenty-ninth session, said that the Committee had elected Mr. Botero Navarro as Rapporteur and had approved the appointment of Mr. Lazhar Soualem to replace Ms. Ladjel as a member of the Committee.

2.Interactive dialogues had been held with the delegations of Madagascar and Mozambique and concluding observations had been adopted in relation to their initial reports. The Committee had also adopted lists of issues in respect of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Colombia, and lists of issues prior to reporting in respect of Azerbaijan and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

3.The Committee had held a meeting with the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to discuss the strengthening of cooperation and the development of joint initiatives. It had also met with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Adviser on Migration and Human Rights to receive an update on the status of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and discuss possible means of collaboration with the new United Nations network on migration.

4.The Committee had appointed Mr. Frasheri as its focal point for the 2020 review of the human rights treaty body system. In addition, it had adopted the common aligned procedure for follow-up to concluding observations, decisions and views contained in annex II to the report of the Chairs of the human rights treaty bodies on their 30th meeting (A/73/140).

5.Following a successful meeting with States and other partners to discuss the Committee’s activities, the non-party States represented had been sent invitations to sign or ratify the Convention. A meeting had been held with representatives of Montenegro to discuss the progress it had made towards ratification of the Convention. The Committee had written to the signatory States Cameroon, Chad, the Comoros, Gabon, Haiti and Togo to request a meeting with their representatives in October 2018, during the seventy-third session of the General Assembly.

6.The Committee had adopted a concept note for its general comment No. 5 on the right of migrants to liberty of person and protection from arbitrary detention. A call for contributions would soon be published on the Committee’s website. The Committee had contacted the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration to underline its firm commitment to facilitating effective implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. It had examined reports from Peru and Kyrgyzstan on follow-up to the Committee’s concluding observations. In addition to approving the joint statement on human rights defenders adopted by the Chairs of the treaty bodies, the Committee had joined other United Nations bodies and experts in adopting a joint statement with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the situation of Venezuelan migrants, and had issued a press release on the same subject in conjunction with the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Lastly, the Committee had adopted its revised rules of procedure.

Closure of the session

7.After the customary exchange of courtesies, the Chair declared the twenty-ninth session of the Committee closed.

The meeting rose at 4.25 p.m.