A/HRC/38/25 including the judiciary, law enforcement, prisons, human rights education in schools, nondiscrimination, gender and national action plans. 30. Contributions by parliaments to international and regional human rights mechanisms can take different forms. Parliaments, in an independent manner, can regularly participate in the process of national consultations preceding the preparation of the national reports to be submitted to the Human Rights Council in the context of the universal periodic review, or to human rights treaty bodies, and in the consideration of the reports prior to their submission to international and regional mechanisms. Delegations sent to participate in the interactive dialogues can include parliamentarians. Parliament can also be presented with the Government’s position on any universal periodic review recommendations received, for discussion prior to submission of the addendum to the outcome report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review. 31. Parliamentarians can also play a leading role in the implementation and follow-up of recommendations made by United Nations human rights mechanisms and other regional mechanisms, for example, through the presentation, by the executive, of the universal periodic review outcome and the subsequent discussion thereof. In particular, parliaments have a fundamental role in calling for the establishment of a national mechanism reporting and follow-up, and could play an active part in the work of such a mechanism, and in ensuring an integrated approach to the reporting on, and the implementation of, human rights mechanisms’ recommendations. 32. Similarly, parliaments have a significant role to play in calling for the development of a national human rights action plan for the implementation of recommendations, while also ensuring that such plans are based on thematically clustered recommendations from all international and regional human rights mechanisms, and are cross-linked to the Sustainable Development Goals. Parliamentarians can and should meet with representatives of human rights mechanisms, such as special rapporteurs, on country visits. V. Survey on parliamentary human rights committees 33. In its resolution 35/29, the Human Rights Council requested OHCHR to prepare a study on how to promote and enhance synergies between parliaments and the work of the Human Rights Council and its universal periodic review. By way of follow-up, on 16 November 2017, OHCHR sent a questionnaire to Member States to gather information on parliamentary human rights committees. The questionnaire was also sent in January 2018 by the IPU Secretary-General to IPU Member Parliaments worldwide. 34. In total, 65 responses to the questionnaires were received (see annex III), mostly directly from parliaments (48), while others were sent by executive branches (7), national human rights institutions (7) and regional organizations (3). In the case of some countries, both the parliament and the executive replied, separately, while, with regard to other States, both the parliament and the national human rights institution responded separately. The total number of countries that responded was 56. 35. In total 35 of those 56 countries have a parliamentary human rights committee. Of those 35 countries, 17 belong to the Group of Western European and other States and the Eastern European Group, 5 to the Latin American and the Caribbean Group, 7 to the AsiaPacific Group and 6 to the African Group. The responses show that most parliamentary human rights committees are established through parliamentary rules and regulations (25 responses), and that 15 have a foundation in the Constitution, with 4 responses showing a basis in national legislation. 36. The mandates of parliamentary human rights committees vary, although a common core set of responsibilities can be observed, including legislative initiative, review and amendment in the light of the international human rights obligations of the State, parliamentary oversight of the work of the executive in fulfilling its human rights obligations, parliamentary debates and hearings on human rights-related issues, engagement with national human rights institutions, and the provision of recommendations to the plenary of the parliament. 7