Committee on Enforced Disappearances

Seventeenth session

Summary record ( p artial )* of the 313th meeting**

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, on Friday, 11 October 2019, at 3 p.m.

Chair:Mr. Ayat

Contents

Closure of the session

The discussion covered in the summary record began at 5 p.m.

Closure of the session

1.Mr. Teraya (Rapporteur), noting that the Committee’s informal report on its seventeenth session would not be presented until the following session, said that he would give a brief overview of the work that had been carried out. The Committee had discussed organizational and other matters relating to the Committee and the Convention. It had elected a new bureau and appointed country rapporteurs for the State party reports that were to be considered at its eighteenth session. It had adopted concluding observations on the reports submitted by the Plurinational State of Bolivia and by Slovakia, as well as lists of issues in relation to the reports of Switzerland and Mongolia and on the situation in Nigeria, in the absence of a report. It had agreed on the provisional agenda for its eighteenth session and had decided to follow up on the implementation of its Views on communication No. 1/2013 (Yrusta v. Argentina).

2.The Committee had discussed various aspects of its methods of work, such as the urgent action procedure, giving due consideration to the 2020 review of the treaty body system. It had held fruitful meetings with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as with Member States and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The annual report of the Committee to the General Assembly would be prepared during the next session, which would take place from 13 March to 9 April 2020.

3.The Chair said that the meeting with the High Commissioner for Human Rights had been the first of its kind in the history of the Committee. It had been an opportunity to thank the High Commissioner for her support and to raise certain issues that were of particular importance to the Committee, such as the need to promote universal ratification of the Convention. The Committee had drawn attention to the joint position paper on the future of the treaty body system that had been adopted by the Chairs of the human rights treaty bodies, which focused on the need to simplify and standardize treaty body procedures and to increase the visibility of the treaty bodies, while taking into account the specific features of each one. The Committee had also alerted the High Commissioner to the fact that it needed support and resources in order to be able to uphold its commitment to alleviating the suffering of victims of enforced disappearance.

4.Mr. Zoller (Geneva for Human Rights – Global Training) said that his organization was eager to contribute to the Committee’s work on the subject of enforced disappearance in the context of migration. It would put forward some ideas to be discussed at the Committee’s joint meeting with the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families in March 2020.

5.His organization was concerned about the wave of cases of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearance mentioned in a recent report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. According to that report, the authorities of certain States that had not yet ratified the Convention, such as China and Turkey, had carried out arbitrary arrests abroad, some of which had led to enforced disappearance. His organization was also concerned about the many reports of arbitrary detention and, in some instances, enforced disappearance of persons involved in mass demonstrations in various countries around the world.

6.His organization would like to work together with the Committee and its secretariat to organize briefings for NGOs on issues relating to the Convention, not only in Geneva but also in the field. Lastly, in order to strengthen the impact of the Committee’s work, it was important to convey to the United Nations system, Member States and NGOs that the Committee needed more resources than other treaty bodies because it had unique mechanisms that served to protect victims and save lives.

7.After the customary exchange of courtesies, the Chair declared the seventeenth session of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances closed.

The meeting rose at 5.20 p.m.