A/HRC/12/50
international humanitarian law, and appreciates the elaboration and publication of the
reports and decisions of these bodies;
3.
Encourages the States concerned to disseminate, implement and monitor
implementation of the recommendations of non-judicial mechanisms such as truth and
reconciliation commissions, and to provide information regarding compliance with the
decisions of judicial mechanisms;
4.
Encourages other States to consider establishing specific judicial
mechanisms and, where appropriate, truth and reconciliation commissions to complement
the justice system, in order to investigate and address gross violations of human rights and
serious violations of international humanitarian law;
5.
Encourages States to provide requesting States the necessary and appropriate
assistance regarding the right to the truth by means of, among other actions, technical
cooperation and exchange of information concerning administrative, legislative and judicial
and non-judicial measures, as well as experiences and best practices that have as a purpose
the protection, promotion and implementation of this right, including practices regarding
the protection of witnesses and the preservation and management of archives;
6.
Also encourages States to design programmes and other measures to protect
witnesses and individuals who cooperate with judicial bodies and mechanisms of a quasijudicial or non-judicial nature, such as human rights commissions and truth commissions;
7.
Welcomes the fact that 81 States have signed and 13 States have ratified the
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,
and encourages all States that have not yet signed, ratified or acceded to the Convention to
consider doing so, in order to allow its entry into force as soon as possible;
8.
Requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights to prepare a report, to be presented to the Council at its fifteenth session, on the basis
of information, including from States, on programmes and other measures for the protection
of witnesses implemented within the framework of criminal procedures related to gross
violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law, with a
view to determine the need to develop common standards and promote best practices that
would serve as guidelines to States in protecting witnesses and others concerned with
providing cooperation in trials for gross human rights violations and serious violations of
international humanitarian law;
9.
Invites the Office of the High Commissioner to convene, within existing
resources, a seminar, taking into account different experiences on the importance of the
creation, organization and management of public systems of archives as a means to
guarantee the right to the truth, with a view to study the need for guidelines on this issue,
and also requests the Office to report on the outcome of the consultation, in the form of a
summary of discussions on the above-mentioned issue, to the Council at its seventeenth
session;
10.
Invites special rapporteurs and other mechanisms of the Council, in the
framework of their mandates, to take into account, as appropriate, the issue of the right to
the truth;
11.
Decides to consider this matter at its fifteenth session under the same agenda
item, or at the corresponding session in conformity with its annual programme of work.
30th meeting
1 October 2009
[Adopted without a vote. See part II, chap. III.]
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