§ Lord Aveburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they consider it satisfactory that, one week before the United Nations Human Rights Commission is due to begin its 1999 session in Geneva, only 26 of the 119 documents to be considered have been published and that none of the reports by the main thematic and country rapporteurs and workings groups is available; and [HL1546]
Whether they will move a Resolution at the United Nations Human Rights commission 55th session which begins on 22 March asserting that decisions on the manner of publication of documents for presentation to the Commission are a matter for the Commission and that all documents shall be published in the language of the original, rather than waiting until translation into all the working languages of the Commission has been completed notwithstanding any decisions of the General Assembly to the contrary. [HL1547]
§ Baroness Symons of Vernham DeanWe encourage the UN Secretariat to issue such reports as soon as practicable and welcome recent efforts to disseminate them more widely using the Internet. We fully support the recommendations contained in the Review of Mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights which suggest measures to make summaries of reports available more quickly. The Review will be discussed at the forthcoming Commission on Human Rights.