MEXICO

General Comments - Government Responses

CERD A/37/18 (1982)

Annex IV

Comments of States parties on General Recommendation VI adopted by the Committee at its 569th meeting, on 15 March 1982 a/

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MEXICO

[Original: Spanish]

[28 April 1982]

1. The Government of Mexico shares the concern of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that a considerable number of States parties to the International Convention in question have not discharged their obligations under article 9 of the Convention.

2. The Government of Mexico considers that the act of ratification demonstrates the good faith of the State and its willingness to perform the Convention and confers on it the legal obligation to carry it out internally. The performance and application of the international instrument mentioned above should be reflected in the contents of the initial and periodic reports which make it possible for the established monitoring system to function effectively.

3. In regard to the request to Governments for comments on the situation arising from article 9 of the Convention, it may be stated that failure to submit reports does not relieve States parties from the obligation to do so; nevertheless, as an extraordinary measure and for the purpose of safeguarding the monitoring of racial discrimination matters, the following distinction can be made.

4. States parties which have not yet submitted their initial report should be urged once again to fulfil as soon as possible their obligation to do so; however, the Government of Mexico considers that those States which are in arrears in the submission of two or more periodic reports might submit one of them, which would exempt them from submitting the remainder, provided that the one report covered the entire period during which they had been in breach of their obligation.

5. Also, bearing in mind that by its very nature legislation proceeds slowly, once legislation has been

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            a/ See chap. IV, part A. para. 45, above.

adopted on the matter, and if the provisions are appropriate, as is hoped, there should be no need for constant amendment of the new provisions; it might therefore be advisable to consider the possibility of increasing the interval between the submission of reports to five years from two, once the initial report has been furnished.