A/HRC/39/44 33. On 17 April 2018, pursuant to that resolution, OHCHR sent letters to the authorities in control in Abkhazia and in South Ossetia seeking unfettered access to these areas to gather factual and reliable information on the human rights situation on the ground. 34. On 18 April 2018, OHCHR received a response from the authorities in control in Abkhazia, indicating that they did not intend to invite Human Rights Council experts due to what they considered to be an inability to express their position in such international forums. At the time of finalization of the present report, the authorities in control in South Ossetia had not replied to the above-mentioned letter from OHCHR. 35. In his 2018 report to the General Assembly on the status of internally displaced persons and refugees from Abkhazia, Georgia and the Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia, Georgia, the Secretary-General reiterated his call to grant unfettered access for OHCHR to be able to assess human rights protection needs and to support related mechanisms on the ground.11 36. The Secretariat of the Council of Europe has not been allowed to visit Abkhazia and South Ossetia for the purpose of preparing its latest consolidated reports on Georgia. It therefore indicated that it had had no opportunity to assess the human rights situation on the ground. However, the Council of Europe was granted access to Abkhazia for the purpose of implementation of confidence-building measures, but not to South Ossetia. 12 In its decision of 2 May 2018, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe expressed deep regret that the organization’s Commissioner for Human Rights, its monitoring bodies or the Secretariat delegation preparing the Secretary-General’s consolidated reports had not been granted access to these regions.13 37. During the period under review, the report on the human rights situation in Abkhazia prepared by two independent experts, Thomas Hammarberg and Magdalena Grono, following their earlier visits there, 14 became publicly available. 15 The authors underlined that further international visits to Abkhazia on human rights issues would benefit all parties.16 38. During the reporting period, several United Nations development and humanitarian actors continued to have operational access to Abkhazia. The authorities in control in Abkhazia and the Government of Georgia have, inter alia, allowed the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to introduce the services of a second shuttle bus17 to transport people across the Inguri Bridge, the main crossing point between Abkhazia and the Tbilisi-controlled territory. 39. Local staff of United Nations agencies and international non-governmental organizations who are allowed to access Abkhazia are, however, subjected to requirements, introduced by the authorities in control in Abkhazia, before crossing the Administrative Boundary Line, which have limited their operational flexibility. 18 40. There has been no progress in granting access to South Ossetia to United Nations development and humanitarian agencies, nor to its human rights mechanisms. 41. OHCHR reiterates the importance of reviewing and, if necessary, adjusting or complementing the Georgian Law on Occupied Territories so as to facilitate unhindered, predictable and sustainable access and service delivery by humanitarian and development 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 8 See A/72/847, para. 10. See, for example, “Consolidated report on the conflict in Georgia (October 2017−March 2018)”, document SG/Inf (2018)15, paras. 5 and 73. See paragraph 11 of decision CM/Del/Dec(2018)1315/2.1, available at https://search.coe.int/cm/Pages/result_details.aspx?ObjectID=09000016807c117a. See also A/HRC/36/65, para. 33. Thomas Hammarberg and Magdalena Grono, “Human rights in Abkhazia today”, July 2017, available at www.palmecenter.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Human-Rights-in-Abkhazia-Today-report-byThomas-Hammarberg-and-Magdalena-Grono.pdf. Ibid., pp. 10 and 76. On the services of the first shuttle bus, see, inter alia, A/HRC/36/65, para. 35. See A/72/847, para. 51.