A/HRC/25/69 70. In her reply to several questions, Ms. Davis Lake stated that approaches such as national measures as well as complementary international standards should not be seen as mutually exclusive. A legal basis or framework could give effect to national processes. She said that the OAS Conventions provide for establishment of a Committee to monitor their implementation and that this will be the place where States Parties will share good practices. 71. Mr. Ibrahim Salama, Director of Human Rights Treaties Division at OHCHR, also gave a presentation during the 11th meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee, providing an overview of the series of experts meetings on incitement to racial, ethnic, national and religious hatred and the Rabat Plan of Action. In his presentation, he referred to the general context and history of the exercise which reflected the subject matter, the substance and the potential it constituted. He noted that there were political and intellectual tensions and underlined that there was a false dichotomy with regard to freedom of religion and freedom of expression and opinion. There were indeed legitimate and perceived risks linked to the issue of incitement to hatred, which was considered a grey zone and risky area. To deepen the understanding of the subject matter, the first meeting was held in October 2008, focusing on the relationship between articles 18 and 19 of the ICCPR. He said that during the Durban Review Conference, the High Commissioner promised to launch a process of reflection. The meetings considered State practices, national mechanisms and empirical evidence on effective measures. He noted that it was based on a bottom up approach. There were expert discussions, which were opened to Member States that took the opportunity to enrich the discussions. The legislative approach included comparisons, case law and policy analysis. For each workshop there were about 20 experts from the region; participants included Special Rapporteurs, treaty-monitoring bodies, NHRIs, NGOs and Member States. 72. He explained that the Rabat Plan of Action was based on a comparative analysis and it draws on common ground. At a political and intellectual level, it is an expert-driven process, though still open to Member States. He explained that there was de facto complementarity with Human Rights Council resolution 16/18 and the Istanbul process. The plan of action created double monitoring processes and included thresholds for speech that need to be adapted to the national context. The Plan is not limited to legal measures as it includes recommendations on media, education, but also to governments. It offers a platform for action that Member States can consider voluntarily and being outside of the inter-governmental process it diffuses the political context and there is no compelling force. Based on the knowledge that was generated during these meetings, it extended beyond rhetoric thereby improving reality. 73. The delegate of the United States noted that the Rabat Plan of Action is different from HRC resolution 16/18 with its related Istanbul process, as Rabat was developed through expert meetings , while 16/18 and Istanbul are State-led processes. The Czech Republic also noted that the Rabat process and the Istanbul process are separate from the mandate of the Ad-hoc Committee. She noted that there is discrepancy among participants of the Committee, reflected in the will to share national policies and national experience and abstract calls about the need to draft international instruments. It was still not clear what are the universal challenges that needed to be overcome: who has a problem; where exactly; and, what are the obstacles in practice? 74. Mr. Salama referred to the ‘politics of rights’ and stated that demystifying the issues at stake was the beginning of the solution. Unfortunately, misuse of words and misuse of religions cost the lives of so many people. He explained that threshold was an important consideration: What is that constitutes advocacy of hatred? The answer was extremely difficult and complex. He added that, in his view, between a normative and an implementation gap, there were shades of other gaps, such as interpretation gaps, multistakeholders gap, and understanding gaps. With regard to follow ups to the Plan of Action, he stated that this was a work in progress. The Ambassador of African Union noted the 33