UN-Truth

The UN’s Human Rights Committee is frustrated at the lack of media coverage of its work, it appears.

A press release published by the UN Office in Geneva, where the Committee meets, reports that: “Committee Expert Ivan Shearer presented a working paper on how to improve the Committee’s relations with the media and to make the work of the Committee more widely known, as well as to improve public understanding of its work. Among issues raised in the paper were how to make the Committee’s traditional end-of-the-year press conference more effective; whether Committee meetings should be moved from Palais Wilson to the Palais des Nations, were there were more facilities and were it was easier to attract the press; and whether the Committee’s conclusions on private communications should be communicated to the media.

“Further questions and remarks, raised for discussion by Mr. Shearer included whether the Committee should abandon its rule of keeping the name of the country Rapporteurs confidential; whether draft versions of General Comments should be posted online before they were being adopted; and whether the results of the follow-up procedures should be made available in the public domain. He also suggested that the Committee consider naming a Rapporteur on media relations.

“During the ensuing discussion, a number of Experts criticized the current Committee website, which was categorized by one Expert as ‘a mess’.

“Noting that many legal associations and organizations around the world now had blogs, an Expert suggested that those could be tapped to communicate the Committee’s work. An Expert suggested that the tapes of the Committee’s meetings, which were used by the translation service, be posted on the Web. Other Experts were concerned about whether that could be done legally if the States parties involved objected. The risk of the possibility of selectively using the recordings to distort their meaning was also raised. It was decided that the legal status of this possibility should be checked out. Several Experts also expressed displeasure at the fact that UN press releases did not mention Experts by name. It was felt that the press wanted names to be able to quote them … ”

The Human Rights Committee should not be confused with the previous larger body, the Committe on Human Rights, which has now morphed into the not-too-different Human Rights Council.

The Human Rights Committee is, according to the Geneva press release, “charged with overseeing implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”.

At the end of the session, the Committee made the decision to request the Secretary-General to authorize the Committee to meet at the Palais des Nations when considering reports of State Parties.

The press release prepared by the UN in Geneva is here.

The UN acquiesced in the Swiss government’s insistence on donating their renovated Palais Wilson for all human rights activities in Geneva. Everybody knew that the removal of the human rights meetings from the main center of activity in the Palais des Nations, but nobody would explain this to the Swiss authorities. And nobody made much of an effort at all to facilitate press access — that would have taken too much time, it would have ruffled too many feathers, it would have made too many waves, it might have cost too much, and it would NOT have been easy.

Other factors that make it difficult for press coverage is the uneven, generally tedious and exasperating nature of the human rights treaty-body-monitoring meetings.   Given the varying interests of the “independent” human rights experts who sit on these bodies, their questioning of the various states parties is highly varied and inconsistent — contributing to the impression that different states are held to different standards.

Filed under: Human Rights, Journalism and Journalists, United Nations