A/HRC/8/7* page 27 221. Egypt (in a national capacity) fully welcomed and supported the transmission of the text to the Council. 222. Morocco considered that the text met the concerns of delegations, provided the best possible compromise, and that the Council should adopt the protocol as soon as possible. 223. Denmark reserved its final position on the draft and stated that the decision to forward the draft to the Council represented neither an agreement on the text as a whole nor support for all elements in it. Denmark remained sceptical of an individual complaint mechanism. The nature and progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights made them insufficiently justiciable and less suited for such a mechanism, which could potentially interfere, unwarranted, with national policy measures. 224. The Netherlands was satisfied that several of its concerns had been accommodated and that useful compromise solutions had been found in some instances. Given that its overriding interest - the possibility to opt out from the right of complaint with regard to certain provisions - had not been accommodated, it reserved its final position on the draft. 225. Japan noted that it was less than satisfied with the draft, as arguments on some articles to which it attached importance had not been settled and its proposals not reflected. 226. Canada remained concerned about establishing a communications procedure for economic, social and cultural rights, given their different nature as progressively realizable. Some Covenant rights, set out in broad and vague terms, could not be easily subjected to quasi-judicial assessment. It regretted the rejection of an à la carte approach, which would have facilitated broader acceptance of the procedure. It was not fully satisfied with the language intended to ensure appropriate deference to sovereign State prerogatives for resource allocations and policymaking. It did not support the inclusion of a trust fund, was concerned that the inclusion of additional mechanisms would overburden the Committee and duplicate existing mechanisms, emphasized the non-binding character of interim measures, and noted that the Committee should only consider documentation from regional human rights systems concerning instruments ratified by a State party. 227. Spain would have liked a higher threshold for protection of Covenant rights, but recognized that the text reflected a consensus and was a significant step towards the effective protection of these rights. It addressed an historic inequality between artificially created categories of rights. 228. Poland was not fully satisfied with the text and reserved its position with a view to further deliberations in the Council. It noted that Poland would not be bound by case law developed under the protocol if it did not ratify this instrument; Part II of the Covenant should be applied in line with article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties; article 8, paragraph 4 of the protocol would be interpreted in the light of the whole text of article 2, paragraph 1 of the Covenant; as to the material scope of application, Part II of the Covenant could only be invoked in conjunction with the rights in Part III; the application of interim measures would be left to the discretion of the State party and the non-application of an interim measure would not imply a violation of the protocol’s provisions; and article 9 excluded the possibility of recommending

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