A/HRC/34/23
II. Progress in cooperation between United Nations and regional
human rights mechanisms
5.
In accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 30/3, the first session of the
workshop was devoted to taking stock of developments since the 2014 workshop.
Participants highlighted challenges and shared best practices in implementing the
recommendations of the 2014 workshop.
A.
Special procedures
6.
Participants noted a substantial increase since 2014 in the exchange of information
and cooperation between special procedure mandate holders of the United Nations and the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights habitually referred to United
Nations human rights standards when dealing with cases where there was no established
case law in the Inter-American system. The Commission considered the support it received
from special procedure mandate holders to be useful, particularly for the preparation of its
country visits.
7.
A joint working group of representatives of United Nations special procedures and
the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights had been established to oversee the
implementation of the Addis Ababa road map on cooperation. 3 A review of the road map
took place in Luanda in 2014, and its implementation continued with a number of joint
statements, joint visits, conferences and seminars. Thematic workshops on child marriage,
women human rights defenders, the right to life and businesses and human rights also took
place. The Commission adopted resolutions on reprisals and sexual orientation. It also
conducted studies on freedom of assembly and association, and on women human rights
defenders.
8.
Participants identified insufficient funding for cooperation activities as the primary
obstacle to the implementation of the Addis Ababa road map. A suggestion was made to
make joint funding proposals and communications efforts and continue improving strategic
planning, particularly around country visits, to better follow up on recommendations made
by the special procedures of the United Nations and the African Commission. The most
recent discussion between the delegation of special procedure mandate holders and
members of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the status of the
implementation of the road map took place in November 2015, during the African
Commission’s fifty-seventh ordinary session.
9.
Work on the right to life was done jointly by the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions and his counterpart in the African Commission’s working
group on the death penalty and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings in Africa. That
particular initiative had led to the development of a general comment on the right to life in
accordance with the African Charter. The African Girls’ Summit, which promoted efforts to
end child marriage and had been held in November 2015, had brought together the Special
Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Special
Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and its consequences,
the Special Rapporteur on rights of women in Africa of the African Commission and the
3
Adopted in January 2012 at Addis Ababa in a dialogue convened between special procedure mandate
holders of the Human Rights Council and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in
order to enhance mutual collaboration.
3
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