A/HRC/6/21 page 9 treaty-based status. In that regard, it referred to the working group under the Human Rights Council mandated to elaborate an optional protocol to the Covenant which would allow the Committee to receive and consider individual communications. This procedure would strengthen the existing status of the Committee and also establish a treaty-based monitoring body. Moreover, Turkey noted that in considering the rectification of the legal status of CESCR, the ongoing treaty body reform process should be taken into account, including the proposal for a unified standing treaty-monitoring body. 30. The Government of the United States of America indicated that if the States parties to the Covenant wished to provide the CESCR with a formal legal status equivalent to that of other treaty bodies, States parties should either amend the Covenant or adopt a new optional protocol thereto. Article 29 set out the appropriate procedure for amending the Covenant, a procedure involving, inter alia, the proposal of an amendment by any State party, the convening of a conference of States parties by the Secretary-General, and the approval of the amendments by the conference and the General Assembly. The Government noted that once it entered into force, the amendment would be binding on those States parties which had accepted it. In the absence of a 100 per cent adherence of States parties, it would seem that the Committee would be governed concomitantly by the ECOSOC resolution and treaty law, creating overlapping and potentially inconsistent structures and mandates. Equally, if the goal was to create new competencies of the Committee, this would not seem to justify amending the Covenant, given the separate exercise under way that could establish such new competencies through an optional protocol.