| United Nations | CEDAW/C/1994/6 |
Committee on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women
Distr. GENERAL
30 November 1993
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN
Thirteenth session
New York, 17 January-4 February 1994
Item 5 of the provisional agenda*
* CEDAW/C/1994/1.
WAYS AND MEANS OF EXPEDITING THE WORK OF THE COMMITTEE
Report by the Secretariat
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION .......................................... 3
I. RESERVATIONS TO THE CONVENTION ............... 3
II. ADEQUATE TIME TO CONSIDER REPORTS OF STATES
PARTIES ..................................... 4
III. OVERDUE REPORTS ............................. 6
IV. FEASIBILITY OF DRAFTING AN OPTIONAL
PROTOCOL .................................... 7
V. SECRETARIAT SERVICING OF THE COMMITTEE AND
COOPERATION WITH OTHER TREATY BODIES AND THEIR
SECRETARIATS ................................ 8
VI. VENUE OF SESSIONS ........................... 9
VII. REVIEW OF THE RULES OF PROCEDURE ............ 9
VIII. FORMULATION OF COMMITTEE COMMENTS ON THE
REPORTS OF STATES PARTIES ................... 10
IX. REPORTS TO BE CONSIDERED AT THE FOURTEENTH
SESSION ..................................... 10
X. PROVISIONAL AGENDA FOR THE FOURTEENTH
SESSION ..................................... 10
XI. ISSUES FOR THE NEXT MEETING OF THE
CHAIRPERSONS (1994) ......................... 10
Annexes
I. States parties' reports available for
consideration at the fourteenth session, by
order of receipt ............................ 12
II. Provisional agenda for the fourteenth session
of the Committee ............................ 13
INTRODUCTION
1. At its twelfth session, in 1993, the Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) decided that
the secretariat should prepare every year, as a pre-session
document, a report on ways and means of improving the work of the
Committee, containing all the information that the secretariat
believed was necessary for the discussion on the item arising
from the secretariat's experience from the previous year, the
comments made by members to the secretariat or developments
elsewhere in the human rights regime. It should also contain a
list of States parties whose reports could be considered at the
subsequent session with a view to geographical representation and
order of receipt.
2. The present report contains information based on the
discussions that took place during the recent sessions of the
Committee, results of the World Conference on Human Rights and
developments within the United Nations with regard to secretariat
structures, documentation and conference-servicing policies and
resource levels.
I. RESERVATIONS TO THE CONVENTION
3. The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by
the World Conference on Human Rights states that "... Ways and
means of addressing the particularly large number of reservations
to the Convention should be encouraged. Inter alia, the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
should continue its review of reservations to the
Convention ...". 1/
4. As is the case with other human rights treaties, the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women allows reservations so that a maximum number of
States can become parties. However, article 28 of the Convention
states inter alia that:
A reservation incompatible with the object and purpose of
the present Convention shall not be permitted.
5. At its twelfth session, the Committee recalled that it had
raised the issue of reservations to the Convention at its
previous sessions and that, at its eleventh session, it had
adopted General Recommendation 20, inter alia, to the effect that
in connection with preparations for the World Conference on Human
Rights in 1993, States parties should raise the question of the
validity and legal effect of reservations to the Convention in
the context of reservations to other human rights treaties. It
also decided that it "... should support steps taken in common
with other human rights treaty bodies to seek an advisory opinion
from the International Court of Justice that would clarify the
issue of reservations to the human rights treaties and thereby
assist States parties in their ratification and implementation of
those international instruments ...". 2/
6. No progress has been made in taking steps to seek an
advisory opinion. However, the Vienna Declaration and Programme
of Action states that "The World Conference on Human Rights
encourages States to consider limiting the extent of any
reservations they lodge to international human rights
instruments, formulate any reservations as precisely and narrowly
as possible, ensure that none is incompatible with the object and
purpose of the relevant treaty and regularly review any
reservations with a view to withdrawing them." 3/
7. The Committee itself regularly raises the issue of
reservations with States parties when they present their reports.
The Committee raises questions, however, only when the report is
presented. States parties can object within the period of a year
to reservations entered by other States parties and this has been
done in a number of cases. Reservations entered or withdrawn, as
well as objections registered, during a given year are reported
to the General Assembly in the annual report of the Secretary-
General on the status of the Convention. In order to encourage
States parties to withdraw reservations, particularly those that
do not conform with the criteria set out in the Vienna Programme
of Action, the Committee could consider developing orientations
for the reporting by States parties on their reservations,
particularly toward explaining how they are interpreted. These
orientations could be included in the guidelines on reporting
adopted by the Committee and circulated to States parties.
II. ADEQUATE TIME TO CONSIDER REPORTS OF STATES PARTIES
8. The Committee's meeting time to receive and examine reports
of States parties is limited by article 20 of the Convention,
which specifies that the Committee shall meet for two weeks.
There is a clear recognition by States Members of the United
Nations that the time is inadequate, since by its resolution
1992/17 of 30 July 1992 the Economic and Social Council supported
the Committee's request that it be allowed to meet for a three-
week period until it eliminated its backlog in considering
reports. This support was restated in Economic and Social
Council resolution 1993/14 of 27 July 1993. Furthermore, the
General Assembly, by resolution 47/94 of 16 December 1992,
authorized the Committee to meet for three weeks in 1993 and
1994.
9. Assuming that the Committee completes consideration of the
reports of 13 States parties at its thirteenth session, a total
of 24 reports of States parties (including combined reports) are
pending consideration by the Committee as of 1 November 1993 and
have not yet been scheduled. The number will grow over the
coming months. For the last several years, the inter-sessional
backlog averaged some 39 reports. The States parties whose
reports are available to be considered in 1995 are shown in
annex I.
10. Achievement of the accepted objective of States parties
meeting their treaty obligations on time will mean that it will
be impossible, under existing circumstances, for the Committee to
consider the reports. With 128 States parties, the Committee
would be expected to receive and examine 32 reports per year.
11. The lack of timeliness in considering the reports of States
parties is serving as a disincentive for States to report, which
is weakening the effectiveness of the Convention. An average of
three years passes between receipt of a report by the secretariat
and its consideration by the Committee. In the intervening
period Governments have often changed, making a new Government
responsible for the presentation of a report prepared by its
predecessor. Often, the new Government submits supplemental
information which is, in effect, a new report. This increases
the volume of documentation (and its cost) and leads to
complications in framing questions. It should be noted that this
supplemental information is a major factor in the increased
documentation requirements of the Committee and that the General
Assembly is applying greater scrutiny to the conference-servicing
requirements, including documentation, of all human rights treaty
bodies.
12. One option for dealing with the growing backlog within the
mandated meeting time of the Committee is to develop procedures
whereby more reports could be considered within the two- or
three-week period. The Committee currently follows the general
procedures of other human rights treaty bodies in examining
reports, based on the "constructive dialogue" with the States
parties. For initial reports, it receives a presentation of the
report by representatives of the State party and thereafter poses
questions. The State party returns at a subsequent meeting to
present its answers to the questions and to respond to further
questions. Because more than one State party replies to
questions at a given meeting, the total time allotted to the
consideration of initial reports is one and one half meetings.
Because the initial report is considered to be the "baseline" for
further monitoring, it has been felt that its consideration
deserves additional time. For second and subsequent periodic
reports, the Committee makes use of a pre-session working group
to formulate questions which are then provided in writing to the
State party. The State party then appears and responds to the
questions posed by the pre-session working group as well as to
further questions. The time allotted to the consideration of a
second or subsequent periodic report is one meeting.
13. Based on this procedure, the Committee has scheduled between
13 and 14 reports for a three-week session. For the next (1994)
session, six will be initial reports and seven will be second or
subsequent. This means that of a total of 30 meetings available,
16 are dedicated entirely to the "constructive dialogue" feature.
This is the largest number of reports reviewed in an equivalent
time period of all of the human rights treaty bodies.
14. Any effort to reduce the time allowed to a State party to
present its report and respond to questions would appear to place
the "constructive dialogue" in jeopardy, by making it too
perfunctory to explore national implementation experience in any
detail.
15. The Committee undertakes, in conformity with article 21 of
the Convention, to prepare recommendations to States parties. It
has completed a total of 20 recommendations over 12 sessions.
The Committee is also expected to make input into relevant world
conferences, including the World Conference on Human Rights, the
International Conference on Population and Development (1994) and
the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality,
Development and Peace (1995). It is further obligated to respond
to requests for its views from other human rights bodies (as when
the Commission on Human Rights requested its views on the
desirability of requesting an advisory opinion from the
International Court of Justice on the status of reservations to
human rights treaties). The work of drafting the recommendations
and other input mostly takes place outside the regular working
hours, but the Committee tries to set aside time to permit
discussion. It has set aside eight meetings for this purpose at
its forthcoming thirteenth session.
16. Even if the Committee were to completely abandon its
responsibilities under article 21 and dedicate the six meetings
now set aside for its article 21 function to reviewing additional
reports, this would not meaningfully reduce the backlog.
17. The second option is to revise the Convention to permit the
Committee to request the meeting time it needs to exercise its
responsibilities. It should be recalled that, in its Suggestion
4 on the World Conference on Human Rights, the Committee
recommended:
"... that, with a view to placing the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women on
the same footing as other human rights conventions: ...
Steps should be taken to amend the Convention to provide
adequate time for meetings by eliminating the limitation set
out in article 20 of the Convention ...".
The World Conference on Human Rights, however, made no
recommendation to that effect.
18. The Committee might wish to make a further recommendation on
this issue. It should be noted that two other human rights
treaties, the International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination 4/ and the Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, 5/ have recently been amended without opening up
substantive issues in order to overcome a procedural limitation
set out in the treaty itself. By this process, the funding of
the treaty monitoring bodies were transferred to the regular
budget of the United Nations, rather than from States parties.
III. OVERDUE REPORTS
19. Under the Convention, States are required to make an initial
report one year after the Convention has entered into force for
it and thereafter every four years, unless the Committee decides
otherwise (article 18). This means that the second periodic
report is due four years after the initial report was due. The
intent was to emphasize the responsibility of States to prepare
their initial and subsequent reports promptly and regularly.
20. Most States parties have not been able to adhere to the
schedule. The initial report has had the greatest delay. As of
1 November 1993, 38 States parties have not submitted their
initial reports and over 20 others are overdue in submitting
second and subsequent periodic reports.
21. The issue of overdue reports has been addressed by the
Committee in previous sessions and, as a practice, States which
have more than one report overdue are permitted to combine them
into a single report. This enables States to remove their
backlog in reporting and to begin a regular schedule of
reporting.
22. The Committee may wish to consider what further steps might
be taken to encourage States parties with overdue reports to
bring them up to date. The preparations for the Fourth World
Conference on Women could include, for example, bringing reports
up to date. An overall effort within the human rights regime to
address reporting generally could also be a factor.
23. The Committee might wish to examine, however, the effect of
increased reporting by States parties with overdue reports on the
work of the Committee, particularly since the Committee is not
able to consider the reports it now receives in a timely fashion.
IV. FEASIBILITY OF DRAFTING AN OPTIONAL PROTOCOL
24. The World Conference on Human Rights recommended that:
"... New procedures should also be adopted to strengthen
implementation of the commitment to women's equality and the
human rights of women. The Commission on the Status of
Women and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women should quickly examine the possibility of
introducing the right to petition through the preparation of
an optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women ...". 6/
25. The Committee had already been seized of the question, in
the light of the work of the expert group meeting on violence
against women, which began the process of drafting the draft
Declaration on Violence against Women. While not having dealt
specifically with an optional protocol that would introduce the
right of petition, at its twelfth session, the Committee adopted
Suggestion 4 on the World Conference on Human Rights, which
recommended that, "with a view to placing the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women on the
same footing as other human rights conventions: ... A study
should be prepared on the feasibility of drafting optional
protocols".
26. The recommendation to draft an optional protocol or not
would be made by the competent intergovernmental body, the
Commission on the Status of Women. In making its recommendation,
it would seem likely that the Commission would wish the views of
the Committee on the practical feasibility of such a protocol.
27. If modeled on the optional protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 7/ a citizen of a State
party to the protocol would be able to send a communication to
the Committee alleging a violation by that State of the rights
set out in the treaty. The Committee would examine the case and
render a judgement.
28. Two factors relevant to the Committee's work seem worthy of
consideration in examining the feasibility of the protocol.
First, because the Convention focuses on the measures taken by a
State to eliminate discrimination the process of the adjudication
of a complaint might be more complex with the Convention since
they would tend to include situations where the State failed to
take measures rather than when the State acted. Secondly, the
addition of a communications procedure to a Committee whose
meeting time is already severely limited would probably make it
impossible for the Committee to carry out its mandated tasks.
Clearly, the limitation of meeting time would have to be removed
before an optional protocol could be implemented.
29. The Committee may wish to express its views on the
feasibility and desirability of an optional protocol to establish
a petition procedure under the Convention, so that these views
can be communicated to the Commission on the Status of Women.
V. SECRETARIAT SERVICING OF THE COMMITTEE AND COOPERATION
WITH OTHER TREATY BODIES AND THEIR SECRETARIATS
30. In conformity with article 19 of the Convention, the
Secretary-General is responsible for providing the Committee with
secretariat servicing. From the beginning of its existence in
1981, the servicing responsibility has been assigned to the
Division for the Advancement of Women, which also services the
Commission on the Status of Women. The servicing of the other
human rights treaty-monitoring bodies has been assigned to the
Centre for Human Rights, which also services the Commission on
Human Rights.
31. The World Conference on Human Rights underscored the
responsibility of the Centre for Human Rights in the coordination
of United Nations activities in the field of human rights. It
also reaffirmed the role of the Division for the Advancement of
Women in promoting the equal rights and status of women. It
recommended that "... cooperation and coordination should be
strengthened between the Centre for Human Rights and the Division
for the Advancement of Women". 8/
32. In its Suggestion 4, the Committee had recommended that "The
servicing of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women should be provided by both the Centre for Human
Rights and the Division for the Advancement of Women of the
United Nations Secretariat, and that the meeting places of the
Committee should be adjusted accordingly".
33. As of 1 August 1993, the Division for the Advancement of
Women has been transferred from Vienna to United Nations
Headquarters in New York, as part of the Department for Policy
Coordination and Sustainable Development. It is therefore
located in a place where the Centre for Human Rights maintains an
office and where many of the other human rights treaty bodies
hold meetings.
34. Servicing resources for the Committee are allocated, as
before, in the programme budget section assigned to the Division
for the Advancement of Women. In the past, the Centre for Human
Rights has participated in servicing by providing staff during
the Committee's sessions to provide information on developments
elsewhere in the human rights regime.
VI. VENUE OF SESSIONS
35. Article 20 of the Convention specifies that the Committee
shall meet at United Nations Headquarters or at any other
location that the Committee might decide. Since 1981, the
Committee has met alternately in New York and in Vienna. Meeting
in Vienna was authorized by the General Assembly because the
secretariat of the Committee was located at Vienna.
36. The transfer of the Division for the Advancement of Women to
New York now means that the secretariat of the Committee is
located at United Nations Headquarters. A new mandate would be
required if the Committee were to meet at a place other than
United Nations Headquarters.
VII. REVIEW OF THE RULES OF PROCEDURE
37. At its twelfth session, the Committee decided to review its
rules of procedure, taking into account the fact that the
Committee's rules of procedure had been drafted in 1981, that
over the years its workload had increased and certain working
methods had been adopted to expedite its work.
38. A number of anomalies now exist in the rules of procedure.
For example, the rules specify that the agenda for the subsequent
session would be prepared by the secretariat in consultation with
the Chair of the Committee. In practice, the Committee now
adopts its provisional agenda for the next session at the
conclusion of each session. However, no clear procedure exists
to modify that provisional agenda, should the need arise.
Similarly, the institution of standing working groups, around
which much of the Committee's work is organized, is not reflected
in the rules of procedure. Moreover, the Committee now uses a
pre-session working group to prepare questions for States parties
presenting second and subsequent reports, a procedure which is
not yet reflected in the rules of procedure. Finally, the
Committee, at its twelfth session, decided that immediately
following each session a summary of that session should be
prepared by the Chairperson of the Committee. That summary
should be sent to the persons chairing other treaty bodies. No
rule yet exists to cover that procedure.
39. Also at its twelfth session, the Committee decided to
request extraordinary reports from several States parties,
arising from a specific situation in which women's rights
protected under the Convention may have been violated. In doing
so, "... the Committee put on record its commitment to look into
similar grave violations of rights being experienced by women in
any part of the world". 9/ The Committee's rules of procedure
currently make no provision for these extraordinary requests,
including the criteria which might be applied and means by which
the requests could be met.
40. The Committee, taking all of these factors into account, may
wish to review the rules of procedure, rule by rule, to determine
whether they need to be changed in the light of experience.
VIII. FORMULATION OF COMMITTEE COMMENTS ON THE REPORTS
OF STATES PARTIES
41. The Committee at present does not have a procedure for
formulating comments on the reports of States parties, apart from
a summary made by the Chairperson at the end of each
consideration. Other human rights treaty bodies have procedures
for formulating a Committee position on the situation of the
State party in relation with the treaty concerned. For example,
the Human Rights Committee designates a rapporteur for each State
party that reports, who prepares a draft comment which is then
discussed by the Committee, agreed and issued.
42. The Committee may wish to consider how, in the context of
the existing time constraints, it could formulate such comments.
IX. REPORTS TO BE CONSIDERED AT THE FOURTEENTH SESSION
43. The list of States parties whose reports have been received
but not yet considered by the Committee, in order of receipt, is
found as annex I.
X. PROVISIONAL AGENDA FOR THE FOURTEENTH SESSION
44. A draft provisional agenda for the fourteenth session of the
Committee is found as annex II.
XI. ISSUES FOR THE NEXT MEETING OF THE CHAIRPERSONS (1994)
45. With reference to paragraph 87 of the Vienna Declaration and
Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human
Rights, the Committee may wish to give its views concerning steps
aimed at coordinating the multiple reporting requirements and
guidelines for preparing States reports. The Committee may also
wish to study the suggestion that the submission of one overall
report on treaty obligations undertaken by each State party would
make these procedures more effective and increase their impact.
Notes
1/ A/CONF.157/23, sect. II, para. 39.
2/ A/48/38, sect. I, para. 5.
3/ A/CONF.157/23, sect. II, para. 5.
4/ Resolution 2106 A (XX), annex.
5/ Resolution 39/46, annex.
6/ A/CONF.157/23, sect. II, para. 40.
7/ Resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.
8/ A/CONF.157/23, sect. II, para. 37.
9/ A/48/38, sect. I, para. 2.
Annex I
STATES PARTIES' REPORTS AVAILABLE FOR CONSIDERATION
AT THE FOURTEENTH SESSION, BY ORDER OF RECEIPT
A. Initial reports
Bolivia 8 July 1991
Chile 3 September 1991
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 27 September 1991
Mauritius 23 February 1992
Paraguay 6 May 1992
Uganda 1 June 1992
Ethiopia 22 April 1993
Iceland 5 May 1993
Tunisia 17 September 1993
B. Second periodic reports
Peru 13 February 1990
Argentina 13 February 1992
Cuba 13 March 1992
Belgium 9 February 1993
Finland 9 February 1993
Dominican Republic 26 April 1993
C. Third periodic reports
Russian Federation 24 July 1991
Norway 25 January 1991
Hungary 4 April 1991
Ukraine 31 May 1991
Canada 9 September 1992
Mexico 1 December 1992
Philippines 20 January 1993
Denmark 7 May 1993
Annex II
PROVISIONAL AGENDA FOR THE FOURTEENTH SESSION OF THE COMMITTEE
1. Opening of the session.
2. Solemn declaration by the new members of the Committee.
3. Election of officers.
4. Adoption of the agenda and organization of work.
5. Background report of the Chairperson on the activities
undertaken during the year.
6. Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under
article 18 of the Convention.
Documentation
Report of the Secretary-General on the status of submission
of reports by States parties under article 18 of the
Convention
Reports of States parties to be considered at the fourteenth
session
7. Implementation of article 21 of the Convention.
Documentation
Note by the Secretary-General on reports provided by
specialized agencies
Report of the Secretariat on analysis of article 2 of the
Convention
Report of the Secretariat on the implications for the work
of the Committee of the priority themes of the Commission on
the Status of Women
8. Ways and means of expediting the work of the Committee
Documentation
Report of the Secretariat on the ways and means of
expediting the work of the Committee
9. Consideration of the report of the fifth meeting of persons
chairing the human rights treaty bodies and action taken by
the General Assembly concerning treaty bodies.
Documentation
Report of the fifth meeting of persons chairing the human
rights treaty bodies
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