A/HRC/15/WG.2/TF/2
is transformed into a template that allows reporting countries or institutions to enter
the required information in a convenient format, adapted according to the particular
characteristics of the users. The validity and usefulness of the template should be
pilot-tested with partnerships in the areas the Working Group might wish to select.
That process could afford an opportunity to adjust the criteria further to achieve
greater comprehensiveness and accuracy. One approach to pilot-testing the reporting
template could include collecting data on the policies and practices of several States or
of arrangements of particular development objectives; a blind analysis could then be
made of the results. This approach would ensure the objectivity of the tool and the
eventual elaboration of recommendations to bring policies and practices into greater
conformity with the right to development without bias. Without such a tool, the task
force is concerned that judgements regarding what may or may not contribute to the
right to development run the risk of being speculative or politically motivated.
3.
Consultations with regional institutions
74.
The Working Group may wish to encourage initiatives and senior-level
consultations involving regional institutions on the integration of right to development
concerns and criteria into their policies and activities, as witnessed recently in
Arusha.4 Such regional consultations, which might also include the African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights and European human rights institutions, would allow those bodies to
reflect on how their efforts to promote human rights within and in the context of their
respective regions can build upon the work of the task force, particularly with regard
to the effective realization of the right to development.
75.
A special modality of regional consultations could be organized with the new
intergovernmental human rights bodies that came into existence in 2009 under the
auspices of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the League of
Arab States. The Working Group may wish to invite representatives of the ASEAN
Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and the Arab Human Rights
Committee to explore how they might incorporate right to development concerns into
their future work in promoting and protecting human rights in their respective
member States.
4.
Further development of a comprehensive and coherent set of standards
76.
The Working Group has expressed the intention to use the criteria to develop a
comprehensive and coherent set of standards, which could take several forms. As a
start, the Working Group might wish to seek information, properly analysed on
existing examples used in the United Nations system, such as guidelines, codes of
conduct or practice notes, and examine proposals for the structure and methods for
drafting of a set of standards most suited to the right to development. A mechanism
could then be put in place to formulate such a set of standards based on the criteria
prepared by the task force.
77.
While differing views exist with regard to the timing, content and principle of a
legal instrument of a binding character, the compromise language of paragraph 2 (b)
of resolution 12/23, adopted by the Human Rights Council in spite of 14 abstentions,
4
GE.10-11443
The African Union Commission, OHCHR and the Economic Commission for Africa, in cooperation
with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, organized a meeting on improved interaction
between the universal periodic review, the African peer review mechanism and the right to
development, on 23 and 24 November 2009.
17
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