A/HRC/39/58 such complaints. As of January 2016, the Court had received 74 applications and finalized 25 cases. 7 The Commission, however, has a longer history of judicial work. As of November 2017, it had received 659 communications, of which it had finalized 446. Another important regional human rights mechanism is the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which is tasked with promoting and protecting the rights enshrined in the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which came into force in 1999 and has been ratified by 48 member States. In addition, there are subregional courts which have over the years adjudicated on a number of important human rights cases, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice and the East African Court of Justice. 8. The current Arab Charter on Human Rights was adopted in May 2004 by the Council of the League of Arab States (LAS) at the Summit level after the revision of an earlier version that was adopted in 1994 but not ratified by any member State. of the League. The Charter entered into force in March 2008, two months after the seventh document of ratification had been deposited with the General Secretariat of the League, pursuant to paragraph 2 of article 49 of the Charter. The Charter has been ratified by 14 out of 22 LAS member States. However, it includes many provisions that are incongruent with international standards.8 The Arab Human Rights Committee was established in 2009 to oversee the implementation by State parties to the Charter of the rights and freedoms set forth in the Charter and to issue its observations and recommendations in accordance with the provisions of the Charter. In 2014, the LAS Council adopted the Statute of the Arab Court of Human Rights. The Court will have jurisdiction over all cases resulting from the implementation and interpretation of the Charter, or any other Arab convention in the field of human rights. Another important mechanism to consider is the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a transregional organization with members in Africa, Europe, Asia and even South America. The OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission was launched in 2011 and has identified the rights of women, the rights of the child, human rights education and the right to development as its key priorities. 9 9. The Asia-Pacific region does not yet possess a regional arrangement for the protection of human rights, even though several workshops to discuss the possibility have been convened since 1990.10 However, some progress has been made at the subregional level, particularly in South-East Asia. The first agreement of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to consider the establishment of a regional human rights arrangement was made in June 1993 following the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. In November 2007, the ASEAN member States signed the Charter of the Association of South East Asian Nations, in which the promotion and protection of human rights was expressed, along with a commitment to the establishment of a regional human rights mechanism. Accordingly, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights was established in July 2009. In 2012, the countries of ASEAN unanimously adopted the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration but a human rights court has not yet been established. Although progress at the subregional level is promising, a regional framework for the entire Asia region is still a work in progress. 11 One example of this was the proposal by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea to create an Asian human rights court, which was announced at the third congress of the World Conference on Constitutional Justice in 2014. 7 8 9 10 11 See http://en.african-court.org/index.php/cases/2016-10-17-16-18-21#finalised-cases. See Mervat Rishmawi, “The revised Arab Charter on Human Rights: a step forward?”, Human Rights Law Review, vol. 5, No. 2 (January 2005). See www.oic-iphrc.org/en/about. See www.hurights.or.jp/archives/focus/section2/1997/03/un-workshops-on-regional-arrangement-forhuman-rights-in-the-asia-pacific.html. See ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, available from http://aichr.org/pressrelease/the-adoption-of-the-asean-human-rights-declaration-ahrd-at-the-21st-asean-summit-and-thespecial-meeting-of-the-asean-intergovernmental-commission-on-human-rights-aichr/. 5