A/HRC/31/74 consensus could not be used to stop progress. Finally, the representative recalled that Council decision 3/103 made no reference to guidelines or plan of actions. K. General discussion and exchange of views, 15th meeting 70. At the 15th meeting, the Ad Hoc Committee held another general discussion and exchange of views. The Chair-Rapporteur recalled the need to consider what was to be done with the list of new topics and distributed as requested a document containing proposals for topics to be considered from the general discussions at the 13th and 14th meetings of the seventh session of the Ad Hoc Committee. The document was a compilation of the topics that had been proposed by the delegations the previous day. He noted the need to identify the topics of priority interest in order to conclude discussion and move forward. In the interest of time management, he suggested that two topics could be selected for discussion at the eighth session. He also suggested that, at that session, the Ad Hoc Committee consider limiting its future sessions to seven working days, without prejudice to those future sessions, and that the Committee could make such a recommendation to the Council. 71. The representative of South Africa stated that the African Group was not in a position to agree to any proposal to reduce the duration of future sessions of the Ad Hoc Committee to seven days, and it would need to consult with the Group. In addition, the Committee did not have the mandate to decide the length of the session as that was the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Council. 72. The representative of the European Union stated that it had consulted with its members and requested the addition of the following three topics: “human rights education”; “implementation of existing norms and standards”; and “monitoring procedures of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and other mechanisms”. It supported the topic of racism and sport and could lend its support to the proposal to discuss the topic of multiple forms of discrimination. 73. The representative of the United States supported and endorsed the ChairRapporteur’s proposal to reduce the number of working days of future sessions the Ad Hoc Committee. He stated that the United States planned to continue to participate in forthcoming sessions. With respect to the new topics proposed by the European Union, he said his delegation was likely to support that of “human rights education” and had no immediate concern with respect to the other topics. The representative reiterated the previous position of his Government regarding the mandate of the Committee: that the mandate originated from paragraph 199 of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which did not state that complementary standards must take the form of a legally binding instrument, such as an optional protocol to the Convention. He recalled that the resolutions or decisions of the Council concerning the Ad Hoc Committee between 2006 and 2009 were voted texts and, in his delegation’s view, diverged from language used in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, but that the Council resolutions on the Ad Hoc Committee between 2010 and 2012 (i.e., resolutions 13/18 and 21/30) instead used the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action mandate language, and had been adopted by consensus. His delegation, while recognizing different statements by other delegations on the mandate of the Committee, believed that the most important statements thereon were those that had been most recently made by the Council, as they had been adopted by consensus and relied on the mandate of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action without changing it. The United States believed that complementary standards could take a non-binding form such as guidelines, principles or action plans. 74. The representative of Brazil could support the European Union proposals, particularly since “human rights education” had been proposed in 2013 by a number of 17