A/HRC/14/24 24. Civil society actors have been eager to provide information on follow-up reports, and have contributed substantially. However, less than half of the countries reviewed responded to my requests to provide information on their implementation of recommendations. Responses from some United Nations country presences have also been disappointing. 25. Given the disappointing results documented in the follow-up reports, it is clear that the Council should devise procedures to ensure that the recommendations are addressed by States. Otherwise, there is a risk that country visits will be treated by some Governments as a temporary inconvenience to be endured rather than as an occasion for serious stock-taking to enhance respect for human rights. 26. It should also be acknowledged, however, that the effectiveness of country missions should not be measured solely on the basis of formal responses to specific recommendations. The reality is that country missions have many important benefits, some of which are not easily quantifiable. In my own assessment, a number, but by no means all, of the country missions I undertook yielded important positive achievements in human rights terms. D. Country visit requests 27. The ability of the mandate to be effective is significantly undermined by the extent to which States in which there would appear to be serious problems of extrajudicial executions can systematically ignore requests to visit, in some cases for over a decade. The information below indicates that almost 70 per cent of the 52 countries requested have either not responded at all to requests, or have failed to approve a visit. From the perspective of the individual State, the decision to respond to a mission request is a matter for its sovereign discretion. There may be a number of legitimate reasons why a visit would not be appropriate at a given time, and why different mandates might be accorded priority. But as the years pass, these reasons become less plausible. From the perspective of the Council, there comes a point when the mechanism it has established to monitor and report on extrajudicial executions is effectively disabled from doing its job properly in respect to the States concerned. This should be a matter of grave concern to the Council in view of its mandated responsibility in relation to “the prevention of human rights violations”.5 28. During my mandate, mission requests have been sent to 53 countries, in addition to a range of outstanding requests by my predecessor. Of these: • 14 requests resulted in country missions • 4 country missions have in principle been accepted to take place in 2010 and 2011 (Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico and Turkey) • 35 States either did not respond at all or failed to approve a mission despite entering into correspondence6 5 6 General Assembly resolution 60/251, para. 5 (f). In addition to 21 non-responses, one State stated that the request (made in 2006) was under consideration; three States responded that an initial request could not be granted, and then did not respond to subsequent follow-up letters; two States agreed initially to a visit, but then indefinitely postponed; two States responded that a visit could not take place in the year requested; four States indicated that a visit could take place in the future, but have not responded to subsequent requests; one State acknowledged receipt of the request, but did not respond to follow-up requests; and one State merely acknowledged receipt of the request. 7