Civil society focuses on report on the implementation of the ICCPR
The Human Rights Committee will be adopting a List of Issues, which is supposed to guide the South African government report (if they decide to present one) in March 2015. South Africa will then be reviewed by the Human Rights Committee in Geneva at a date to be determined later.
After 1994, South Africa became party to a number of human-rights treaties reflecting the country’s commitment to upholding and advancing human-rights standards as a member of the international community. Being a party to a human-rights treaty requires that a South Africa reports on a regular basis (four to five years) to the treaty monitoring body. The country has not submitted a single report since ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1998, yet is obligated to submit a report every four years. The UN Human Rights Committee has decided to review South Africa in the absence of a report on the implementation of the ICCPR, which is overdue since May 2000.
This is workshop gave South African civil society an opportunity to have a say in the process, submit information to the Human Rights Committee and suggest questions to be raised to the authorities. The deadline to submit the civil society report is 2 January 2015. However, we will all hopefully be able to contribute to the consolidated report within the imposed time frame.
The consolidated report from the workshop will be submitted for the Review in absence of the initial Report at the 113th session of the Human Rights Committee in Geneva in March 2015.
For further information, see the Centre’s Guidelines on civil society contributions to the implementation of the ICCPR
http://ccprcentre.org/doc/CCPR/Handbook/CCPR_Guidelines%20for%20NGOs_en.pdf