A/HRC/8/7* page 18 United States favoured referring to “any rights set forth in Part III read in conjunction with Part II of the Covenant”. Morocco reiterated its position that the application of the protocol should be limited to rights that are only specific to the Covenant. The NGO Coalition cautioned against exclusion of Part I of the Covenant from the protocol. China and India stated that Part I of the Covenant should be excluded from the scope of the article. 145. With regard to paragraph 2, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Egypt (on behalf of the African Group), Finland, France, Germany, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) supported a comprehensive approach and called for the deletion of this paragraph. Italy and Sweden supported a comprehensive approach, provided that the optional protocol allowed States a wide margin of appreciation to determine freely the best use of their resources. 146. Canada, China, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States supported the retention of the paragraph. The United States suggested that the reference to specific articles should be changed to read “any rights set forth in Part III read in conjunction with Part II of the Covenant”. Austria, Denmark, the Republic of Korea and Turkey supported an opt-out clause. Japan and Poland preferred an opt-in clause, as proposed by Canada, but remained open to consider an opt-out approach. Latvia and the Russian Federation favoured an à la carte approach. China stated that an opt-out approach should not be applied to article 2, paragraph 1, of the Covenant. Article 3 147. The Working Group approved its deletion. Article 4 148. With regard to paragraph 1, the Working Group agreed to delete “or unlikely to bring effective relief”. ICJ expressed concern about the deletion, arguing that no one should be required to exhaust futile remedies. 149. Paragraph 2, subparagraph (a) was approved by the Working Group as amended, replacing “six months” with “one year”. 150. Subparagraph (b) was accepted as drafted. 151. Subparagraph (c) was approved as drafted after some discussion. Egypt (on behalf of the African Group) and Senegal requested a reference to “international procedures of similar character”. Bangladesh, Egypt, France, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Senegal proposed deleting “investigations” and referring to “similar procedures of settlement”. Guatemala suggested adding the word “complaints”. India and the Russian Federation proposed referring to “another procedure of international consideration of communications or settlement”. The Syrian Arab Republic preferred mentioning “settlement, complaint and investigation”. Australia, Austria, Brazil, Greece, Liechtenstein, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom cautioned against changing to language that might