A/HRC/7/22 page 5 7. The Special Rapporteur would like to thank the Government of National Unity and the Government of Southern Sudan for their cooperation during her visit and also during the work of the group of experts on Darfur. She would like also to thank the Human Rights Office of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for providing her support and all the people who took the time to provide her information on the situation of human rights in the Sudan, in particular the victims of human rights violations who shared their personal stories. The Special Rapporteur commends the national human rights defenders and the international agencies for their hard work to further the promotion and protection of human rights and to provide humanitarian assistance to people in need. II. GENERAL SITUATION A. International legal framework 8. The Sudan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and both Optional Protocols to it, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Slavery Convention of 1926 and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Sudan is a high contracting party to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and acceded to the two Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions in 2006. The Sudan is a signatory to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; it signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007. Thus, the Sudan is bound to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of these instruments. 9. In 2007, the human rights situation in the Sudan was reviewed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child under the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and by the Human Rights Committee. In their concluding observations, both committees emphasized that progress was still needed in the Sudan to address impunity and the protection of women and children’s rights, and to establish an age for criminal responsibility that corresponded to international standards. The Sudan also submitted its third periodic report to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for review at the forty-second session of the Commission, in November 2007. B. National framework, institutions and reforms 10. Some progress has been made to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement during the reporting period. With regard to the national legal framework, according to information provided by the Advisory Council for Human Rights, new legislation was drafted and presented to the National Assembly at its fifth session, which convened on 23 October 2007. On 5 November, the Armed Forces Bill was passed in its second reading. The Bill still has to go through two more readings before its final adoption. However, 10 political parties issued a joint statement raising issues with a number of dispositions included in the Bill and demanded that it not be adopted in its current form. The Police Bill was put on the agenda of the meeting of the National Assembly on 27 November, but was later withdrawn without explanation.