A/HRC/28/63 F. Improved follow-up of communications, urgent appeals and country visits 85. The database of communications sent to States and their replies shows to what extent a large number of governments4 do not reply adequately to communications, urgent appeals or letters of allegation, however well documented. Their replies do not always cover the situation or the case concerned but simply set out the situation, often in very general terms, without really addressing the seriousness of the cases in question. 86. At his first consultations with human rights defenders, it became clear how pressing the issue of the follow-up of cases actually is. Few of the human rights defenders know whether a file that they have sent to a mandate holder has been received and what use has been made of the communication. While preserving the necessary confidentiality of information received and the use made of it, the Special Rapporteur considers that, at the very least, a formal acknowledgement of receipt should be made to any person, organization or network that has sent a communication or referred a case for action by the mandate holder, in accordance with the code of conduct and confidentiality that the Special Rapporteur observes with governments. 87. The current procedure is to send an automatic acknowledgement of receipt in response to a communication, without, however, stating what use will be made of that communication. The Special Rapporteur considers that this is not sufficient and he intends to look into how the communications system can be improved so as to make it more relevant and enable a faster and more appropriate response to be sent. 88. The Special Rapporteur believes that the pace of interventions should not be speeded up, otherwise it might be forgotten that the Special Rapporteur and his team have acted in hundreds of cases in the past, each one relating to an individual story that requires a specific response; silence is the worst possible response. 89. Follow-up is important because, by drawing attention to cases that have had a positive outcome, it shows the good practices that can be reproduced or duplicated in order to increase the chances of obtaining positive results in a larger number of cases. Where possible, the Special Rapporteur will include positive stories in his reports in order to show the relevance or effectiveness of a good practice. 90. The Special Rapporteur intends to make the question of follow-up one of the major features of his activities and will regularly provide the Council and the General Assembly with detailed information on any failure to respond by regularly reporting on the follow-up to communications. 91. The Special Rapporteur intends to conduct and publish a study specifically relating to the follow-up to communications and on the impact that a failure by States to respond has on the situation of human rights defenders. He will regularly remind States that fail in this way of the number of cases to which they have not responded. 92. To a greater or lesser degree, all the stakeholders have a special responsibility to follow up communications and cases, but particularly governments, because they are responsible for preventing human rights violations, threats and attacks against human rights defenders and for taking action against impunity by prosecuting those responsible for human rights abuses. 93. The previous mandate holder showed the useful role that national human rights institutions can play in the follow-up to recommendations and the treatment of individual 4 14 The average response rate by States is around 45 per cent. GE.14-25280