Consideration of reports (continued)
(a) Reports submitted by States parties in accordance with articles 16 and 17 of the Covenant
Panama
Organization of work (continued)
CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS (agenda item 4) (continued)
(a) REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES IN ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLES 16 AND 17 OF THE COVENANT
1. At the invitation of the Chairperson, Mr. Kam (Panama) took a place at the Committee table.
2. The CHAIRPERSON welcomed Mr. Kam (Panama) who would make a statement to the Committee but would not engage in a dialogue with it.
3. Mr. KAM (Panama) expressed pleasure at the fact that his first duty as Permanent Representative of Panama was to address the Committee. He welcomed the presence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from Panama working in the field of human rights and thanked them for their work.
4. The new Government of Panama which had taken office on 1 September 1994 was focusing on domestic problems, with particular emphasis on human rights. It wished to confirm its desire to embark upon a constructive relationship with the Committee and to welcome the advisory mission requested by the Committee and by the Economic and Social Council in order to develop a human rights policy as an essential part of its programmes of social development and strengthening democracy. The mission would be most useful in helping to improve Panama's compliance with its commitments under the Covenant.
5. That decision would be one of a series of measures aimed at improving the promotion of, and respect for human rights in Panama. He hoped shortly to contact the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to discuss ways of establishing the Office of Procurator for human rights in Panama, in cooperation with human rights groups in that country.
6. He thanked the Committee for the opportunity of addressing it.
7. The CHAIRPERSON expressed the Committee's sincere thanks for the statement by the representative of Panama and welcomed the intention of his Government to hold a constructive dialogue with the Committee. The members of the Committee looked forward to the next stage of the discussion and in particular to the careful planning of the mission which the Government of Panama had agreed to receive.
8. Further information had been received from non-governmental organizations on the situation in Panama, a copy of which would be given to the representative of Panama. The Committee would be grateful if it could be communicated to the Government of Panama.
9. Mr. Kam (Panama) withdrew.
ORGANIZATION OF WORK (agenda item 2) (continued)
Advisory services and technical assistance (E/C.12/1994/WP.9)
10. The CHAIRPERSON said that articles 22 and 23 of the Covenant had foreseen an important role for technical assistance, now known as advisory services. The Committee had emphasized the importance of advisory services and technical assistance in its General Comment No. 2, and the Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly had urged treaty-monitoring bodies to make specific proposals for the provision of advisory services on the basis of their examination of reports by States.
11. The Committee had often suggested that a Government might avail itself of advisory services but had hardly ever made a specific recommendation in that regard because many of the areas within its competence fell outside the programme of advisory services and would more appropriately be dealt with by agencies such as UNDP. Moreover, there was a lack of clarity as to what could be provided under the programme of advisory services.
12. The background to the establishment of that programme had been the refusal in 1953 of the United States to ratify any of the International Covenants on Human Rights and its suggestion that what was needed was not new instruments but voluntary cooperation among States. An intensive programme of seminars conducted by United Nations officials had consequently been set up throughout the world. That programme had later been expanded to provide some genuine technical assistance. The programme had continued to expand but in recent years funding from voluntary sources had not been as great as before, partly because of uncertainty as to the direction of the programme.
13. The Committee had requested the Secretariat to provide it with a paper indicating the type of measures in the field of economic, social and cultural rights that had so far been included in advisory service activities. That paper (E/C.12/1994/WP.9) had been submitted to the Committee at its tenth session; however, the Committee had not had sufficient time to discuss it.
14. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) said that the advisory services programme now focused on a comprehensive country approach to technical cooperation, starting with an assessment of the requesting country's needs conducted by the Centre for Human Rights. The next stage was the development of programmes. Formerly projects and requests had been government-designed and the Centre had functioned as a funding source.
15. The new programme focused on building up the infrastructures and laws necessary for the smooth functioning of the rule of law, with a bias towards civil and political rights. The paper before the Committee (E/C.12/1994/WP.9) described some of the ways in which economic, social and cultural rights were incorporated into the various components of the programme. They included assistance with the development of national plans of action for human rights, constitutional assistance, legislative reform and electoral assistance, assistance for human rights in the administration of justice, training for teachers in human rights, assistance with the development of curricula, workshops for the media on human rights issues, programmes covering prisons, the police, judges and lawyers, and conflict resolution. At the request of the Commission on Human Rights, the Centre assisted Governments in formulating policies on economic, social and cultural rights and developing plans of action.
16. No specific component of a programme was entitled "economic, social and cultural rights". Those issues were incorporated into other components; for example, attention was paid to incorporating economic, social and cultural rights into constitutions when providing constitutional assistance to developing democracies.
17. The current guidelines for project formulation emphasized that due attention should be paid to economic, social and cultural rights in the conception, implementation and evaluation of programmes.
18. The paper (E/C.12/1994/WP.9) made the point that human rights bodies could be instrumental in shaping and directing requests for advisory services. However, a simple recommendation by a United Nations body was not enough to set the ball rolling: the Centre could do nothing without a formal request from a Government.
19. Despite a very great increase in the demand for advisory services, there had been no corresponding increase in staffing resources and funding.
20. Assessment missions, the first step towards developing projects for requesting countries, were carried out by staff from the Centre and by independent experts, who visited the country concerned for approximately two weeks to meet governmental and non-governmental representatives and to collect data on what was needed to improve the human rights situation, including that of economic, social and cultural rights.
21. The reports issued by the programme following needs assessments formed the basis for projects and also informed other development actors and donors of human rights needs. Thus, although the Centre for Human Rights did not have the resources to play an important role in relieving economic and social problems, it did call those needs to the attention of other agencies that could do something about the situation. Within its own modest means it also included projects to improve the situation of economic, social and cultural rights. For example, in the administration of justice, an important aspect of the training given to police officers, judges, lawyers and prison officers was the focus on economic and social rights.
22. Information and documentation projects were a standard component of all the country programmes in order to create public awareness of human rights.
23. The paper (E/C.12/1994/WP.9) made the point that greater attention to economic, social and cultural rights under the technical cooperation programme could be given most effectively by including those rights in the targeted component of technical cooperation identified by the advisory services.
24. The programme was weighted in favour of civil and political rights because it was in the first instance a request-driven programme, established as the result of a stock-taking exercise in 1990-1991 to ascertain needs and establish the issues that were not being addressed by the various agencies.
25. One recent development of significance had been the appointment of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; his appeals concerning capital assistance needs for human rights had clear implications for economic, social and cultural rights in the countries with which the programme cooperated.
26. Mr. SIMMA said that recently a programme had been held at the ILO Training Centre in Turin to train officials in the preparation of reports, one full day of which had been devoted to reporting obligations under the Covenant. Was that one of the activities of the Centre for Human Rights?
27. He had understood that a series of small seminars was to be held in the Centre for Human Rights on various rights under the Covenant, the first of which was scheduled to take place in January 1995. As far as he was aware, the Committee had not been informed of those seminars.
28. He drew attention to the fact that the official in charge of human rights education at the Centre for Human Rights had apparently not been present at the Committee's day of general discussion on human rights education, held on Monday, 5 December 1994.
29. He asked for confirmation that some $150,000 was now available for the computerization of the Centre, and suggested that that sum might be used to set up the long-awaited resource room for treaty-monitoring bodies.
30. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) explained that the Turin seminar had been organized under the Centre's annual fellowship programme. In 1994 it had been decided to hold the seminar jointly with ILO. The seminars on economic, social and cultural rights were not part of the technical cooperation programme; they had been initiated by the Research and Standards Unit of the Legislation and Prevention of Discrimination Branch. There was a focal point for human rights education in the Centre.
31. Mrs. KLEIN-BIDMON (Centre for Human Rights) informed the Committee that a computerization project with a database for the Committee on the Rights of the Child in conjunction with UNICEF was due to be started in January 1995. It would be enlarged to include basic information on the other human rights treaties, such as ratifications, reservations and reports due. As a result of a donation by the Government of France, the sum available had been increased to $111,000. The Centre was not in a position to set up a large system, but a basic system for treaty bodies would be available.
32. The CHAIRPERSON said that he had heard that the sum available was currently $230,000 and asked for that point to be checked.
33. Mr. SIMMA requested that a room should be made available to Committee members. The same request had been made year after year, to no avail.
34. The CHAIRPERSON said that an effort had been made to provide an information centre. It was quite extraordinary that members of treaty bodies had nowhere to work except in the library or coffee lounge and that they had no access to a computer or telephone and no place where they could leave their bags or sit at a desk. Until space was made available to them, they would be looked upon as part-time outsiders.
35. Mrs. KLEIN-BIDMON (Centre for Human Rights) said that there were plans to provide a documentation and research centre with computers and space for members of treaty bodies, but practical difficulties had been encountered. A solution would be found in the near future.
36. Mr. TEXIER said that he fully agreed with the remarks made by other members regarding a documentation centre. As far as advisory services and technical assistance were concerned, he noted that one of the most widely used services had been the series of regional seminars attended by government officials and magistrates. In his opinion the effectiveness of those seminars was doubtful, since Governments could send anyone they chose to them and there was no follow-up. What was needed was training for persons who would then train others when they returned to their countries. He had attended a seminar on the drafting of reports, and it had seemed to him that some of the persons participating were not persons who would later on be responsible for drafting reports. The Centre for Human Rights could not ensure that the right persons attended. Some information on the follow-up to seminars would be appreciated.
37. The arrangements for a mission to Panama opened up a promising new avenue, although it was not known whether other States would accept such a measure.
38. The CHAIRPERSON agreed with those comments. In fact, the Committee had already recommended that funds should be spent not on regional seminars attended by one person from each country but on national seminars to be attended by persons such as representatives of non-governmental organizations, government officials, judges and police officers who would make use of the information provided.
39. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) said that the approach outlined by the Chairperson was precisely that adopted by the Centre for Human Rights. The vast majority of projects were currently carried out at the national level and were targeted on training activities, in contrast to what had happened in the early years, when most activities had been regional or global. The only large-scale international activities currently carried out were those mandated by the Commission on Human Rights. The two most recent regional seminars had been held in the Asia/Pacific region and had focused on the establishment of national human rights institutions which did not as yet exist in many countries of that region and on the making of regional arrangements for human rights, which were also lacking.
40. Training was now carried out at the national level and focused on capacity-building. For example, only recently two weeks of training had been given to the Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip. When the relevant arrangements had been made, the Centre for Human Rights had selected the kinds of participant and had developed the materials and the programme. It had also made sure that the first week was devoted to 50 police trainers, to guarantee follow-up. The second group had consisted of high-level commanders, with whom standing orders for human rights had been drafted. Thus the Programme had recognized that the potential for follow-up was greater at the national level.
41. Mrs. KLEIN-BIDMON (Centre for Human Rights) said that she fully agreed with Mr. Texier that any seminar should be followed up, within six months or a year. In the case of the fellowship programme, in 1994 the Centre for Human Rights had chosen, from the lists of candidates proposed, those who would be responsible for the preparation of reports. Considerable emphasis had been placed on the idea that participants should train others in their own country and report to their Governments on the need to establish certain structures so that their knowledge could be institutionalized. The Centre had not yet asked Governments what follow-up action had been taken, but she hoped that it would be done.
42. Mrs. BONOAN-DANDAN, noting that reports submitted by States parties differed greatly in quality, asked whether there was any way of achieving consistency. She was very impressed by the extensive and detailed work done by UNICEF in promoting the rights of the child and asked what percentage of technical assistance projects was focused on economic, social and cultural rights in particular. The representative of the Centre for Human Rights had been speaking in general terms, and even the secretariat paper (E/C.12/1994/WP.9) contained only generalities. Economic, social and cultural rights were stated to be among the priorities set forth in guidelines, but how did the secretariat allocate priorities? She was not requesting that economic, social and cultural rights should be given priority, only that they should receive equal treatment with civil and political rights.
43. The CHAIRPERSON requested the secretariat to give some specific examples of measures taken to promote economic, social and cultural rights, apart from reporting. Did the Centre have the expertise to give training in economic and social rights, had it ever approached a Government that was drafting a constitution and suggested that it should include economic and social rights, or had it ever looked at institutions that might monitor economic and social rights? There was no evidence that any of that had been done.
44. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) replied that the Centre for Human Rights did not have any indicators with which to measure how much attention was given to economic, social and cultural rights, but it was clear that for various reasons more attention was paid to civil and political rights. Nevertheless, he could give some specific examples from his own work in connection with Malawi.
45. The needs assessment report for that country included a chapter on the identification of needs with regard to economic and social rights, giving indicators for the most vulnerable groups, health and health care, food security, housing and AIDS. Copies of the report could be made available to members of the Committee. In preparing a needs assessment report, the Centre also took into account who was doing what inside the country, so that the most competent and best equipped agencies and programmes dealt with the most appropriate problems. The programme of the Centre for Human Rights was very small compared with that of other agencies with which it had to work in the field, such as ILO, WHO, UNDP or WFP. However, if a poverty alleviation programme was being contributed to by the international aid agencies, or WFP was engaged in a food supply programme or WHO in a health programme, that did not mean that the Centre for Human Rights did not deal with those issues in its needs assessment.
46. The CHAIRPERSON observed that it was all very well to prepare a needs assessment indicating housing or other needs, but under the Covenant all that had to be seen in terms of rights and obligations. UNDP did not do that. It never referred to the right to housing or to the right to food; nor did WFP. Thus the Centre for Human Rights had abdicated from a specialist function which it could perform on the pretext that other agencies of the United Nations system were already performing it. The point was, however, that they were not doing so. For instance, had those agencies ever produced anything on the right to housing in any particular country? Did any programme refer to the desirability of acknowledging the right to housing in legislation? That was the kind of activity which the Committee needed to see and was not seeing.
47. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) replied that the Centre's needs assessment reports never asserted that some right was being denied. They merely pointed out problems that existed with regard to institutions and legislation. The Centre had no mandate to state that a country's laws or institutions were bad. Its function was cooperation, not monitoring, for which others were responsible. However, the needs assessment reports made recommendations on how to deal with some of the needs through legislative reform and training. The clearest case was constitutional assistance, where the Centre dealt with the issue of incorporating economic and social rights into national constitutions during the drafting process without insisting that a country should adopt one approach or another; it brought in experts to provide guidance on how economic and social rights could best be incorporated.
48. The CHAIRPERSON inquired whether the Secretariat had any written material on the constitutional recognition of economic and social rights which it could provide to the Committee.
49. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) replied that it did have such material and would be glad to supply it.
50. Mrs. BONOAN-DANDAN agreed that certain activities mentioned were not part of the mandate of the Centre for Human Rights. However, she would like to know what the difference was between the Centre's work in the field in respect of economic, social and cultural rights and the work done by other agencies.
51. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) said that the Centre had no preconceived notion that it was the body responsible for a specific task. It merely offered services that were available if nobody else was providing them. It could supply no relief money, no large-scale grants, no sponsorship of large government programmes. It could, however, send a couple of experts for two weeks to help with policy formulation or the drafting of legislation, or provide a brief training course or documentation and information. It could also provide a person working in a particular field with a fellowship to enable him to work with a counterpart in another country or send in an external expert to help with a particular problem. The components set out in the programme were not exhaustive, only the most frequently requested. In any case the programme was relatively new and therefore still open to further development.
52. Mrs. IDER said it was important that those in charge participated in the seminars, which should be organized at the national level. The Centre's advisory services and technical assistance activities had greatly improved in terms of both form and content, and the country-comprehensive programme approach was constructive and useful. While it was up to States to request assistance either with regard to economic, social and cultural rights or to civil and political rights, perhaps countries would wish to know more about receiving assistance in the former area; publicity might be called for. Mongolia, for example, as one of the countries in transition, had previously given priority to economic, social and cultural rights, but lacked experience with regard to civil and political rights, and it was on that subject that it had asked the Centre for help. That might be the case of many other countries as well. Implementation of economic, social and cultural rights often depended on a country being able to afford it. Her Government, for example, had offered free education at all levels in the past but was now receiving insufficient aid to continue to do so and could therefore not include it in the Constitution. The Government could also not afford to guarantee all citizens the right to housing, which was very important in her country's cold climate. Different national levels of development must be taken into account by the Centre's advisory services, which should make greater efforts to make Governments aware of their existence and then let the Governments decide whether they wanted assistance on civil and political rights or on economic, social and cultural rights.
53. The Centre had done important work in disseminating compilations of human rights instruments at the primary and secondary school levels, but for the general public it was also important to have an abridged, simplified text which explained to the nationals of the States parties what their rights were. She asked whether the human rights teaching manual concerned civil and political rights only or also covered economic, social and cultural rights. Had it been disseminated as much as possible? Had assistance been given to States in translating the manual into local languages? The interpretation of various provisions of the Covenant needed to be clarified. For example, what was implied by the right to education, and how widely was that right enjoyed? The Committee as well as the Human Rights Committee should interpret the rights contained in the two Covenants. Another example was the right to life. Did that mean that people had the right not to be killed, or that abortion should not be allowed? That right was given a very broad interpretation by the Human Rights Committee to mean that Governments should provide food, shelter and so forth. All of those issues should be included in human rights education.
54. Mr. ALVAREZ VITA asked how non-governmental organizations or others who were not part of the State apparatus could have access to the advisory services offered by the Centre. He also noted that paragraph 18 of the working paper (E/C.12/1994/WP.9) stated, "democracy itself requires that voters are able to make an informed choice regarding economic, social and political programmes of political parties when casting their vote. This is particularly important in terms of enabling ordinary people to make an assessment of the potential impact of these programmes on their economic, social and cultural rights."; that required a substantial dissemination of information on what those rights constituted.
55. Mrs. AHODIKPE questioned the efficiency of the seminars, and called on the Centre to follow the example set by the recent seminar of the International Committee of the Red Cross on international humanitarian law, in which a list of participants had first been drawn up.
56. Mrs. JIMENEZ BUTRAGUEÑO said she agreed it was important that participants in the regional seminars should be selected carefully; that consideration also applied to the professors. The Committee had made progress, but the quality of the reports had not. Something was missing, and she wondered if the Committee's message had not been received.
57. The CHAIRPERSON said it was important for the treaty bodies to understand the progress made in computerization. The Commission on Human Rights had appointed a task force on that question in 1988. Its real focus had been on the Centre as a whole, but for political reasons it had been confined to the work of the treaty bodies. However, slow progress had been made since then, as there were hundreds of potential obstacles within the United Nations system. He wondered what the Committee could recommend that progress should be expedited.
58. Mr. TEBYANIAN (Centre for Human Rights) gave an overview of the current situation, resources and progress made in computerizing the Centre's work. He said that a year and a half earlier, there had been only a few desktop personal computers (PCs) at the Centre; today, despite very limited resources, the Centre had a local area network with 75 PCs hooked up, electronic mail (E-mail) for all of those computers as well as central desktop databases which served as office automation facilities. In January 1994, the Centre had collaborated with United Nations Children's Fund on producing a database on the rights of the child, which had been very fruitful. Two databases had been installed, which would be loaded by January 1995. However, progress had been less successful for the treaty bodies. Three months ago, the Centre had had only $29,000 available for that, from three countries. At that point, however, another Government had given $80,000, and the Centre had immediately requested installation and update of the database for the treaty bodies. When those funds became available, the Centre would be able to buy a file server for the treaty bodies' database and would start implementing it based on the priority data presently available. It would take hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to make the database and information system useful both to the Secretariat and to the treaty bodies. He therefore urged Committee members to make all efforts to help the Centre obtain the necessary contributions.
59. The CHAIRPERSON asked how the $110,000 in available funds would be used. If the file server cost between $10,000 and $20,000, would the rest be used to purchase software or for data inputting? What access did the Centre have to general external databases, notably the Internet, and to commercial databases such as NXUS and LXIS? Was the Centre making efforts to explore access to existing human rights databases, such as those of the International Labour Organisation, the Council of Europe or the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights? What was being done to put the Centre's data onto international networks such as the Internet or WorldWide Web? If nothing was being done at present, could some short-term project be devised which could be implemented quickly, such as compilation of the human rights instruments or documentation containing the Committee's general comments?
60. Mr. TEBYANIAN (Centre for Human Rights) said that a medium-range server would cost $20,000 to $40,000, but would in turn require software, which could cost between $30,000 and $40,000. The Centre was presently considering two packages: a UNIX operating system, and the Sybase database management system, which was the standard database management system of the United Nations. In addition, there would be both the development costs for the database itself and the start-up costs, which could run from $30,000 to $70,000. With the limited amount available, the Centre had decided to try to upload the most urgent needs of the treaty bodies and secretariat data into a textual database management system known as Lotus Notes. That programme was relatively inexpensive; it was not meant to be used for very large databases but could provide information rapidly. The Centre had decided to purchase a server for that software and gradually upload the data necessary in order to have access to the data already available. In that way, the basic infrastructure would be in place for the time when the Centre would have the sufficient resources to choose a large database and communication system. Connecting to public databases required public network connections, such as the Internet or WorldWide Web. The Electronic Services Section of the United Nations Office at Geneva was currently installing an Internet node at the Palais des Nations. When that was available probably within the next few months, the Centre would have messaging capability through the Internet and would be able to connect the databases available on the public network. E-mail was presently available only within the United Nations Offices at Vienna, New York and Geneva. That capability was being enhanced over the next two years to include all the United Nations agencies and international organizations. Communication connections would also be provided within the next two years to secondary United Nations organizations, such as in Santiago and the former Yugoslavia. There were also plans to connect, within the next two years, the secondary nodes of the United Nations to the regional bureaux and field offices of the United Nations Development Programme in the most remote corners of the world. All of that work was being done by the Electronic Services Division at United Nations Headquarters, which was responsible for global communications.
61. With regard to the question on whether any data were available, he said that that was not the case, but that contacts had been established with Togethernet, which could put limited amounts of data on the network. Assuming that negotiations went well, it would be possible to provide urgently needed data for global access within the next six months.
62. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights), replying first to a question by Mr. Alvarez Vita on whether NGOs could participate in the advisory services programme without going through a Government, said that one of the new aspects of the programme had been an increased NGO involvement at national level, where most activities took place. Whereas traditionally, NGOs had been included as observers in certain training course and seminars, it had recently become the policy to involve NGOs not only as observers, but also as participants in such activities as training and workshops, which were directly geared to them. In many cases, there were no government representatives present. The most recent addition to the programme had been the direct funding of national projects, the first meaningful example of which had, to his knowledge, been undertaken with the Russian Federation, as part of the country programme, and entailed making several thousand dollars available for a project involving Liberty Road, an NGO umbrella organization active in the Russian Federation. A similar project on a much larger scale was being carried out in Cambodia, where funds had been set aside for NGO projects addressing the full range of human rights. Such arrangements were currently made on a regular basis within virtually every country programme. Governments must first invite the Centre to include NGOs in such programmes, but he was not aware of any case in which a Government had refused a programme containing an NGO component. In fact, Governments had consistently welcomed NGO involvement.
63. With regard to the question on manuals produced in the advisory services programme, he said that such publications usually constituted the final stage of the programme development process. The publication for primary and secondary schools to which reference had been made by Mrs. Ider was not actually a manual but simply discussed teaching human rights in the broad sense, concerning not only the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants, but also the need to promote tolerant behaviour and avoid stereotyping. There was a plan to produce a manual for primary and secondary schoolteachers for teaching human rights, as part of a series that already included works on human rights and social workers, human rights and elections and human rights and pre-trial detention. The series was new, and more manuals would follow.
64. Part of available funds was earmarked for translating the main international human rights instruments into the local languages, but that rarely went beyond the Universal Declaration and the International Covenants on Human Rights; in a number of larger programmes, however, it had been possible to translate the entire first volume of the Centre's Compilation of International Instruments. Some manuals and training material had also been translated on a country-by-country basis.
65. In respect of the comment that the Centre should select participants for training courses in the same way as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), he pointed out that for its national activities, the Centre in fact employed the same method. Regional and global activities were another matter, because they were more a diplomatic than a technical exercise. At national level, the Centre indicated to Governments in advance its criteria for training courses and it selected participants, whose presence was then checked on site once the programme began. Discrepancies in the participation in such programmes were brought to the attention of the Government concerned. ICRC staff also took part in the Centre's training activities, and the two bodies consulted on activities devoted to training members of the armed forces and the police.
66. As to Mrs. Jimenez Butragueño's remark on the importance of training for reporting obligations, he said that the Centre was working closely on that matter with the committees concerned. It might be advisable to await the results of the 1994 fellowship programme, which focused on reporting obligations, to see whether efforts were on the right track.
67. Mrs. IDER inquired whether the manual for teaching human rights in primary and secondary schools to which reference had been made in paragraph 40 of the secretariat paper (E/C.12/1994/WP.9) had been produced by the Centre or by Hungary.
68. Mr. MOKHIBER (Centre for Human Rights) said that the manual had been produced by Hungary. The Centre had no manuals for curricula, because such material was produced on a country-by-country basis. The Centre sent a team of educators to help draft curricula in the countries concerned; that had already been done in Albania, Romania and elsewhere.
Proposed second optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
69. Ms. TAYA introduced a proposed second optional protocol to the Covenant, stressing that her draft was not to be understood as a counter-proposal to Mr. Alston's; on the contrary, the two proposals were compatible. She was guided by the desire to improve international cooperation, including bilateral and multilateral foreign aid and technical assistance, in order to achieve an effective implementation of the Covenant with the help of communications from individuals and NGOs.
70. Mrs. JIMENEZ BUTRAGUEÑO and Mrs. AHODIKPE drew attention to the difficulties involved for many members of the Committee in considering documents that had not been translated into all the working languages of the United Nations.
71. The CHAIRPERSON said that the document would be translated as soon as possible, but he feared that the Committee would continue to encounter difficulties with obtaining documents on time in all languages.