Distr. GENERAL CERD/C/SR.1442 11 June 2001 ENGLISH Original: FRENCH

CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS, COMMENTS AND INFORMATION SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 9 OF THE CONVENTION (continued)

Review of the implementation of the Convention in States parties whose reports are excessively overdue

THIRD DECADE TO COMBAT RACISM AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION; THIRD WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED INTOLERANCE (continued)

Review of the implementation of the Convention in States parties whose reports are excessively overdue

1. The CHAIRMAN invited the Committee to review the implementation of the Convention in two countries, Togo and the Lao Democratic People's Republic, and gave the floor to the Country Rapporteur for Togo.

Togo

2. Mr. DIACONU (Country Rapporteur) said that, in a letter addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Minister of Justice of Togo said that Togo was behind in the submission of periodic reports because there had been no structure for the preparation of reports since 1996 and it had been impossible for the Inter-ministerial Commission set up in 1997 to begin its work on account of serious material and financial problems. The Minister explained that periodic reports would be prepared and submitted to the Committee as soon as the socio-economic situation permitted and requested the Committee to take account of the reasons which had been given. A copy of the thematic report which had been sent to the Preparatory Committee for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance had been attached to that letter. The thematic report contained the replies of the Government of Togo to the questionnaire sent to the Member States of the United Nations. It should be noted that those replies could also have been sent to the Committee. The Committee had already had to consider the implementation of the Convention in Togo in the absence of a report and a delegation in August 1996 and had decided at that time to remind the Government of Togo of its treaty obligations by inviting it to resume the dialogue.

3. Even though the submission of Togo's last periodic report to the Committee dated back to 1991, a number of documents, including the reports submitted to other treaty bodies, the concluding observations of those bodies and the report of the International Commission of Inquiry for Togo, which had been established in 2000, gave an idea of the situation. It should thus be recalled that the population of Togo was composed of about 40 ethnic groups, the largest of which were the Ewé in the south and the Kabyè in the north. Although the Constitution was in conformity with the Convention and guaranteed the fundamental rights provided for in the instruments ratified by Togo, no law had been adopted to punish acts based on racial or ethnic discrimination, which was not characterized as a crime in the Penal Code. Legal protection against discrimination was thus very limited in Togo.

4. The replies to the questionnaire sent to the Preparatory Committee for the World Conference was stated and repeated that Togo had no problems with minorities, since no ethnic group could be characterized as dominant, and that there had never been any racial or ethnic tension. He stressed that that argument had never been accepted by the Committee. Moreover, the core document submitted in 1996 (HRI/CORE/1/Add.38/Rev.1) referred to inter-ethnic disturbances during the transition period and attempted incitement to racial hatred, which had led to people taking the law into their own hands in towns and villages. The Human Rights Committee had noted in 1994 that soldiers were nearly all recruited among the members of a single ethnic group, namely, according to the note by the Secretary-General addressed to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Kabyè group, to which the President of Togo belonged. The Human Rights Committee had recommended that the Government should remedy that situation and continue the process of national reconciliation. According to non-governmental organizations, the Kabyè occupied a dominant position in trade and in all professions. NGOs also reported that ethnic tensions in the north and in the south had forced minority ethnic groups to flee to neighbouring countries.

5. In its report, the International Commission of Inquiry for Togo, whose mandate was to verify allegations of extrajudicial executions made by Amnesty International, showed that such acts might have been committed in 1998 and implicated the Prime Minister, who had allegedly encouraged militia members who backed the Government in power to carry them out. It recommended the establishment of a new team of experts to check the functioning of aircraft from which the bodies of the victims of those executions had probably been thrown into the sea and had been found on the Togolese and Beninois coasts, to establish a team of forensic physicians and to appoint a special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Togo. The Togolese Government had questioned the content of the report of the Commission of Inquiry and the objectivity of its members.

6. The available documents on Togo showed that the most serious problems were linked to political instability and the lack of a democratic regime, as well as to the general human rights situation, which was characterized by various types of violations, such as torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances, the consideration of which was not within the Committee's jurisdiction. The Committee might request the State party to resume the dialogue with it and use the advisory services of the United Nations to prepare its report. The replies to the questionnaire and the comments made on the report of the Commission of Inquiry showed that it was able to prepare such a document.

7. Mr. MACDARROW (Secretary of the Committee), replying to a request for further information by Mr. Aboul-Nasr, said that Togo did not have a permanent mission in Geneva, but did have an embassy in Paris. The secretariat had sent Togo the usual invitation to be present during the Committee's consideration of its situation and had tried many times to contact an embassy official, but without success.

8. On the basis of a suggestion by Mr. ABOUL-NASR and following an exchange of views in which Mrs. JANUARY-BARDILL and Mr. THORNBERRY took part, the CHAIRMAN said that the Committee would now request States parties to include a country map in their core documents describing the distribution of ethnic groups, as well as a map of the region where the country was located.

9. Mr. de GOUTTES said it was regrettable that the Togolese Government was so far behind in the submission of its report, particularly as a seminar had been organized in Lomé in 1996 by the Centre for Human Rights to help it prepare the reports that it was supposed to submit to various treaty bodies.

10. Recalling that a national human rights commission had been established in Togo in 1997, he asked whether that body had played an effective role following the serious violations which had been revealed by the Commission of Inquiry. Those acts were, of course, not strictly speaking within the Committee's jurisdiction, but it could not be ruled out that they were in fact linked to inter-ethnic and interracial tensions, the Committee having observed that such problems were often interrelated. The Committee might therefore stress the need for follow-up to the conclusions of the report of the Commission of Inquiry.

11. Mr. ABOUL-NASR suggested that the Country Rapporteur should prepare a brief text for the State party on the basis of a precedent in a similar case. In that text, the Committee might deplore the fact that the State party was late in submitting its report and the fact that there was no representative of the State party present, even though an invitation had been sent, and express regret that the seminar organized in Lomé had not yielded the expected results. It might set a new time limit for the submission of the report and invite the Government to re-establish a dialogue with the Committee.

12. Mr. YUTSIS said that the Committee should also express its concern about the general human rights situation in Togo. Although there might not be any outward signs of inter-ethnic tension for the time being, the possibility of such conflicts in Togo could not be ruled out.

13. Mr. DIACONU (Country Rapporteur) said that the Committee must request the State party not only to submit its report and resume the dialogue, but also to take action on the report of the International Commission of Inquiry for Togo. He explained to Mr. de Gouttes that that report did not refer to the National Human Rights Commission, perhaps because that Commission was experiencing considerable material and financial problems, according to the letter from the Minister of Justice.

14. The CHAIRMAN declared the discussion on the situation of Togo closed. He recalled that, at the request of the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Committee had decided not to consider the situation in that country, but to hear the report by the Country Rapporteur so that the State party would have an analysis on which to base the preparation of its next report.

Lao People's Democratic Republic

15. Mr. de GOUTTES (Country Rapporteur) said that the Lao People's Democratic Republic had not submitted any report since its fifth periodic report, which was dated 26 July 1984 and had been considered by the Committee in 1985. Since then, the situation in the country had been reviewed twice by the Committee, in August 1992 and again in August 1996. Both times, the Committee had expressed regret that no new report had been submitted and that no delegation had been present.

16. It might be thought that the interruption of the dialogue with the Lao Government since 1985 could be explained by that country's difficult situation and, in its fifth periodic report, the Lao Government itself had indicated that the country had a shortage of staff qualified to prepare reports. It was, however, to be noted that the Lao Government had managed to submit its initial report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child in September 1997. In view of the genuine problems the country faced, however, the Committee must remind the Lao Government of its obligations under the Convention and invite it to submit an updated report as soon as possible which would combine the main overdue reports and be drafted in accordance with the Committee's guidelines.

17. By way of general information, he indicated that the sixth periodic report of the Lao People's Democratic Republic should, first of all, contain information on political and institutional developments in the country since 1985, such as the content of the Constitution enacted on 15 August 1991, the position occupied by the Convention and international human rights instruments in the hierarchy of legal rules, the other international human rights instruments ratified by the Lao Government, the powers and jurisdiction of the Human Rights Office set up in 1997 and the position of non-governmental human rights organizations in the country. Secondly, the report should contain updated information on the ethnic composition of the Lao population. According to the 1984 report, the Lao People's Democratic Republic had 68 ethnic groups which were divided into three groups and which did not all have the same level of economic and social development (the Lao Loum, who lived in the lowlands; the Lao Sung, who lived in the mountains; and the Lao Theung, who lived in the high plateaux), whereas the 1995 census figures showed only 47 ethnic groups. Thirdly, the next report should provide information on the country's main socio-economic and cultural indicators, particularly with regard to the various ethnic groups.

18. The situation of the Hmong ethnic minority warranted particular attention. The Hmong lived in the northern part of Lao territory, constituted the country's second ethnic minority and made up nearly 10 per cent of the total population. According to various information sources, the Hmong were subjected to social discrimination and a systematic policy of displacement. It would be helpful if the next report could explain the content of the Government's policy with regard to the Hmong.

19. By way of specific information on the implementation of articles 2 to 7 of the Convention, the sixth report should indicate which legal provisions had been adopted to prohibit and punish various forms of acts of racism covered by article 4. In the case of article 5, information should be provided on the measures taken to guarantee the cultural, linguistic and religious rights of ethnic minorities, on the fate of refugees who had fled to neighbouring countries and the measures taken to facilitate their repatriation, on the situation of the Vietnamese and Chinese minorities in the Lao People's Democratic Republic and on restrictions on religious freedom to which persons belonging to minority religious groups had been subjected. As to article 7, it would be helpful if the Government could indicate in its future report what measures it was planning to take to disseminate the Convention and the Committee's conclusions, as well as the measures it had adopted to establish cooperation with non-governmental organizations. In inviting the Lao Government to submit a new report without delay, the Committee might suggest that it should make use of the technical assistance of the advisory services of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

20. Mr. RECHETOV said that, quite apart from its high quality, the analysis by the Country Rapporteur for the Lao People's Democratic Republic should not be regarded as reflecting the Committee's general opinion or as a model that the Lao Government should follow faithfully. Like all other States parties, the Lao People's Democratic Republic should follow the Committee's guidelines on the form and content of reports. The Lao Government should also be given an idea of the date when it should submit its report.

21. The CHAIRMAN said that, at one of its forthcoming meetings, the Committee would consider and adopt the final text which would be sent to the Lao Government and which would indicate the new time limit for the submission of the new periodic report. He requested the Country Rapporteur to prepare a draft text for that purpose.

THIRD DECADE TO COMBAT RACISM AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION; THIRD WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, XENOPHOBIA AND RELATED INTOLERANCE (agenda item 11) (continued)

22. The CHAIRMAN said that he would give the floor to the members of the Committee who had taken part in preparatory meetings for the World Conference against Racism and expert seminars related to the holding of the Conference.

23. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that he and Mr. Fall had represented the Committee at the African Regional Preparatory Conference held in Dakar (Senegal) from 22 to 24 January. Before referring to the Conference itself, he expressed regret that he had not known in advance that another member of the Committee would also be present at the meeting, that he had not been informed until quite late of the date of the meeting, that the practical arrangements for his trip and stay in Dakar had left a great deal to be desired, that he had not received the relevant documents in advance and that all the members of the Committee who had been supposed to represent the Committee at such meetings had not been able to meet in advance in order to agree on the statements they would make.

24. The Dakar meeting had been an inter-ministerial meeting at which most of the African countries had been represented. During the plenary meetings, the statements by the ministers had been very general. On the second day, the participants had considered a document which had been prepared by the African Group in Geneva and which he had been able to obtain on the spot. The document did not refer either to the Convention or to the Committee. Since the Drafting Committee of the meeting had been open only to African countries, he had had to approach delegations to request that reference should be made to the Convention and to the Committee. After many problems, those references had finally been included in paragraphs 17, 23 and 25 of the declaration adopted by the meeting.

25. The work of the Working Group of the Preparatory Committee which was now meeting in the Palais des Nations was quite disorganized and, since the document prepared by the secretariat on the basis of the four regional preparatory meetings left something to be desired, another document was being drafted. The members of the Committee must therefore keep a close watch on the work of the Working Group and ensure, in particular, that the document which would be adopted contained a proper reference to the Convention and the Committee. In view of the problems it had encountered so far in having its role recognized, the Committee must think about the best possible ways of making its voice heard and exerting some influence at the World Conference in South Africa.

26. In conclusion, he drew the Committee's attention to two important points: the proposal made in Dakar, and perhaps at other regional meetings, for the establishment of machinery to monitor the implementation of the declaration and plan of action which would be adopted at the end of the World Conference. In his view, there was no need to establish such a body and it was the Committee itself that should be given such responsibility, considering that, since its own establishment, it had acquired experience, competence and knowledge that fully qualified it for that task. In addition, he stressed that, during the drafting of the declaration and the plan of action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination should be given its rightful place and all States which had not yet done so should be urged to accede to it.

27. Mr. LECHUGA HEVIA said that he had been unable to attend the Regional Preparatory Conference in Santiago because of the lack of coordination between the United Nations services concerned and travel agencies. He had quite simply received his ticket too late.

28. The CHAIRMAN said that that type of misadventure was not the only one of its kind and that it had befallen several of the representatives of the six treaty monitoring bodies. That was a waste of money and effort for the United Nations, whose financial problems were frequently referred to, and he proposed that that question should be raised once again at the next meeting of Chairpersons of treaty monitoring bodies.

29. Mr. SHAHI, reporting on the Regional Preparatory Conference for the World Conference held in Tehran, said that, contrary to what he had been promised, he had not been allowed to take part in the work of the Drafting Committee of that meeting, since the draft text prepared in Geneva by the Asian Group was to be used as it stood. Mr. Sherifis, who had attended the plenary meetings, had, however, been able to describe the work the Committee was doing with a view to the World Conference and to submit the recommendations prepared by Mr. Valencia Rodríguez to a very receptive audience.

30. He had undertaken to give his opinion on the draft declaration and plan of action prepared by the Asian Group. He had, for example, said that he was pleased to note that, without explicitly saying so, the Group had placed particular emphasis on the implementation of the provisions of articles 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Convention. He had also welcomed the warm reception given to the proposal by the African countries, which had, during their Regional Preparatory Conference, requested that the countries and peoples which had been subjected to slavery should be entitled to compensation. He had, however, noted with concern that the declaration and plan of action prepared in Tehran did not refer to the recommendations of the Brahimi report and had made it known that, in the context of its early warning measures and urgent action procedures, the Committee intended to follow up those recommendations.

31. Mrs. McDOUGALL, reporting on the Regional Preparatory Conference which had been held in Santiago and which she had attended without actually being mandated to do so by the Committee, said that the Drafting Committee of that meeting had, of course, recognized the existence of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, but had not allowed it to be a full participant. The Committee's representative, Mr. Valencia Rodríguez, had also been unable to make a general statement in plenary. The Convention was, of course, mentioned in the draft declaration prepared at that meeting, but not as prominently as it should be.

32. The main points relating to the region of the Americas which had been raised during the meeting included the question of the legacy of slavery and colonialism and the discussion of the type of compensation to be proposed in that regard. The participants had also spent a great deal of time discussing three groups of victims: first, American indigenous peoples, whose rights were beginning to be recognized, but whose existence as peoples - and she had insisted on the "s" at the end of the word "peoples" in the English text of the draft declaration - entitled to genuine self-determination was not yet fully recognized; secondly, the descendants of slaves, a group whose history and situation the participants had, however, recognized only at the end of the meeting; and, thirdly, migrants, whose specific problems had also been referred to. The problems caused by globalization and the cause-and-effect relationship between race and poverty had also been discussed, but the participants had not been able to determine which of those factors determined the other. The participants had also dealt with the question of obstacles to the full enjoyment of rights that could, for some people, be constituted by their race, their sex, their disability or their nationality.

33. She also noted that the Santiago draft declaration contained some obvious gaps. It did not refer to the responsibility of transnational corporations and international financial institutions for poverty. She had, however, noted with interest that, for the first time, the United States of America and Canada had taken part in the meeting as full members of the new region known as "the Americas", and not simply as observers.

34. Mr. de GOUTTES, reporting on the European Conference against Racism, which had been held in Strasbourg, said that it had been attended by participants from many different horizons and who had represented European and other States, NGOs, national human rights institutions, international organizations, such as OSCE, and agencies, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Committee's influence had been felt, thanks primarily to Mr. Sherifis, who had made a statement on the Committee, and when Mr. van Boven, a former member of the Committee, had explicitly emphasized the importance of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, expressed regret that too few States had made the declaration provided for in article 14 and submitted a report on regional, national and international legal protection against racial discrimination.

35. Two important texts had been adopted in plenary at the European Conference, i.e. general conclusions and a political declaration by ministers. The general conclusions contained the following main elements: an appeal to all States to sign and ratify the Convention and to make the declaration provided for in article 14, an invitation to States to ensure that no reservation was contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention, the proposal that States should give NGOs the opportunity to help victims in legal proceedings, the importance of the collection and publication of data on cases of racism disaggregated by sex and age, education, training, communication and relations with the media and a recommendation on the promotion of regional and international cooperation between bodies working to prevent racism and protect human rights.

36. The ministers' political declaration reflected the Committee's concerns in many respects. The ministers thus denounced the continued existence of manifestations of racism and contemporary forms of slavery in Europe and elsewhere, of which migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees, indigenous persons, displaced persons and minorities such as the Roma and gypsies were the main victims. They also expressed concern about cases of ethnic and religious cleansing and the use of new mass communication technologies which allowed the spread of racism. They drew attention to the important role the United Nations played in action to combat racism through the Convention and through the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. They made proposals which met the requirements of the Convention and called on States to ensure the full and complete implementation of international instruments at the national level by withdrawing reservations, adopting national legislation characterizing acts of racism as crimes, in accordance with article 4 of the Convention, making concern about sexual equality part of action to combat racism, as the Committee had requested in its Recommendation 25, promoting and protecting cultural minorities, especially the Roma and gypsies, as the Committee had recommended in its General Recommendation 27, and training judges, prosecutors, police officers and prison staff to respect human rights.

37. The conclusions of the European Conference against Racism were extremely rich and took full account of the concerns which the Committee often expressed. It was to be hoped that the World Conference would include those conclusions in the declaration and plan of action it adopted.

38. Mr. ABOUL-NASR requested Mr. de Gouttes to provide further information on the documents adopted at the European Conference in Strasbourg. Were they political or legal documents and why had two documents been adopted at the Conference? He also requested Mr. de Gouttes to indicate whether any consideration had been given to the question of compensation for the victims of colonialism and slavery, for which European countries had been primarily responsible. He was following the discussions of the Inter-sessional Working Group of the Preparatory Committee for the World Conference against Racism and it was apparent that most European delegations objected to the inclusion of a reference to that question in the documents to be submitted to the World Conference against Racism.

39. He also asked whether the two documents adopted in Strasbourg referred to machinery to be established in order to ensure the follow up to the World Conference. Indicating that that question had been dealt with in the text of the declaration adopted by the Regional Preparatory Meeting held in Dakar from 22 to 24 January 2001 and that it had been decided that such follow-up machinery should be entrusted to the Secretary-General of the World Conference, he said that he was personally opposed to that decision because, in his opinion, the Committee was entirely suited to playing that role. In addition, why did the Strasbourg political declaration contain a proposal for the establishment of an international observatory on racial behaviour when the Committee could also carry out that task perfectly well?

40. Mr. de GOUTTES said that the first of the two documents adopted at the European Conference in Strasbourg contained the general conclusions adopted by the European Conference and the second contained a political declaration which had been adopted by the ministers of the member States of the Council of Europe and which was primarily a summary of the meeting's general conclusions.

41. The question of the compensation of victims of colonialism and slavery had been raised in the general conclusions of the European Conference, which indicated, inter alia, that all States must recognize the suffering inflicted by slavery and colonialism and reject ethnic and religious cleansing and genocide in Europe and other parts of the world and work together to prevent them from occurring again. That question was also referred to at the end of the preamble of the political declaration adopted by the ministers, which stated that the suffering inflicted by slavery and resulting from colonialism must be remembered. However, the question of compensation for the victims, which had been raised at the Dakar and Tehran meetings, was not dealt with in the documents adopted at the European Conference. Neither of the two documents adopted in Strasbourg referred to the establishment of machinery to follow up the World Conference.

42. Mrs. McDOUGALL said that the conclusions and recommendations adopted at the regional meeting held in Santiago (Chile) from 25 to 27 October 2000 reflected the participants' determination to promote the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In a chapter of the conclusions relating to the Convention, all States were invited to ratify that instrument in order to achieve the objective of its universal ratification by 2005. States were also invited to restrict the scope of the reservations they had formulated to some articles of the Convention and to ensure that no reservation was incompatible with the principles and objectives of the Convention. States were also requested to continue cooperating to promote the full implementation of the Convention through effective and transparent dialogue. The Committee's substantive concerns were thus reflected throughout the document, even though the articles of the Convention were not explicitly referred to.

43. Mr. RECHETOV said that the Warsaw Regional Meeting in which he had taken part as the representative of the Committee had been very useful in that it had brought together representatives of central and eastern European countries. Experts had been in charge of the discussions, in which various NGOs, including NGOs representing gypsy communities, had taken part.

44. During the meeting, many academics had drawn attention to the provisions of national constitutions referring to racial discrimination and it had thus been possible to identify the countries with the best machinery for combating the problem. He himself had drawn the participants' attention to the fact that machinery for action to combat racial discrimination was already provided for in the Convention, which would, if it was universally and fully implemented, make it possible to take effective action to combat racial discrimination. In that connection, he had managed to ensure that the final document of the meeting contained a special section on the strengthening of the implementation of the Convention in which an appeal was made for all Member States of the United Nations to ratify the Convention and for those which were already parties to submit reports to the Committee on a regular basis. They were also requested to fulfil their obligations under article 4 of the Convention and to reconsider their reservations to that article. He had also suggested that civil society should be requested to put pressure on States parties to take account of civil society's viewpoints in the reports they submitted to the Committee and that States which refused to take account of those viewpoints should be requested to submit a parallel report.

45. Mr. YUTSIS said that he had represented the Committee at the Regional Preparatory Conference held in Santiago (Chile) from 25 to 27 October 2000. The final declaration adopted at the Conference contained several extremely important recommendations from the Committee's point of view and reaffirmed that it was impossible to deny the existence of racism and the relationship between poverty, racial discrimination and racism. A sign of clear progress had been the new attention paid to two questions, i.e. the question of interbreeding in Latin America and the situation of the Afro-American community.

46. With regard to the references to the Committee and the Convention in the final declaration adopted at that Conference, he indicated that it had been recommended that the States of the region which were not parties to the Convention should speed up the process of the ratification of that instrument in order to accede to it before the World Conference against Racism was held. Even though the Convention and the Committee were not explicitly referred to in the final declaration, the foundations had been laid for determining which factors worked in favour of the universal ratification of the Convention.

47. He had also taken part from 16 to 18 February 2000 in a satellite meeting on the protection of migrant workers which had been held in Segovia (Spain) under the auspices of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He would report to the Committee on that meeting at a later date.

48. Mrs. McDOUGALL, informing the Committee of the progress of the work of the Inter-sessional Working Group of the Preparatory Committee for the World Conference against Racism, said that the heads of the regional groups had met on 7 March 2001 and that the plenary meeting had decided that consultations should continue within the regional groups. At a later date, the Working Group would probably consider draft declarations and programmes of action to be submitted to the World Conference. She would continue to keep the Committee informed of the progress made by the Working Group.

49. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said he was surprised that the Committee had never been consulted about the choice of experts invited to take part in various meetings and conferences. He wished to know who invited the experts and on the basis of which criteria.

50. Mr. YUTSIS said that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights decided which experts represented the Committee at meetings and conferences organized around the world.