2. Takes note with appreciation of: (a) The report of the Secretary-General on the effective implementation of international instruments on human rights (A/HRC/4/81); (b) The reports of the Secretary-General containing the reports of the chairpersons of the human rights treaty bodies on their sixteenth to nineteenth meetings (A/59/254, A/60/278, A/61/385 and A/62/224), held in the period 2004-2007, and the reports of the inter-committee meetings of human rights treaty bodies annexed thereto; 3. Welcomes the measures taken by the human rights treaty bodies to date to improve their functioning, and encourages continuing efforts aimed at improving the effectiveness of the treaty body system with a view to a more coordinated approach to its activities and standardized reporting, including by streamlining, rationalizing, rendering more transparent and otherwise improving working methods and reporting procedures, inter alia by: (a) Reducing the duplication of reporting required under the different instruments as well as the reporting burden on States parties, including through the use of the common-core document, without impairing the quality of reporting, and focused periodic reports based on the concluding observations; (b) Harmonizing the general guidelines regarding the form and content of reports across all treaty bodies, including through the adoption by each treaty body of revised reporting guidelines for treaty-specific documents; (c) Providing preliminary lists of issues to States in advance of consideration of reports by treaty bodies; (d) Coordinating the schedule for the consideration of reports; (e) Limiting the length of States parties’ reports; (f) Establishing improved and harmonized methods of work for the treaty bodies and harmonizing rules of procedure; (g) Enhancing efforts to provide concrete and practical concluding observations addressed to States parties, taking into consideration views expressed during the constructive dialogues with them; (h) Harmonizing practices relating to the publication and reporting of responses by States parties to concluding observations and comments made during the constructive dialogues with a view to enhancing transparency; (i) Considering harmonizing practices for inviting comments from States and other stakeholders in the elaboration of general comments, including by publishing a single list of general comments under consideration; (j) For treaty bodies dealing with individual complaints, considering further ways of improving their working methods in this regard; 20