A/HRC/25/22 take full advantage of technological developments, while at the same time making it universally accessible for persons with disabilities. 38. The Chair further highlighted that the strengthening process was, by definition, a multi-stakeholder process in which both States and treaty bodies had specific competencies. The chairpersons very much valued the dialogue in each committee as well as the informal consultation that was a permanent feature of the annual meeting of the chairpersons. 39. The Chair recalled that the treaties provide for the treaty bodies’ rules of procedure and working methods to be determined by the treaty bodies themselves, and highlighted that the treaty bodies were committed to the continued harmonization of their working methods. He welcomed the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on treaty body strengthening.3 In conclusion, he stated that the treaty bodies had already invested greatly in developing possible solutions for a crisis that, if not attended to, could seriously weaken a system already under stress. 40. In the ensuing dialogue with Member States, the chairpersons emphasized the need to give the Addis Ababa guidelines — which they considered a valuable tool — time to be implemented and used before resolving to review them. They suggested the possibility of creating a joint treaty body working group to look into the issue of reprisals. On the reliability of sources, they mentioned their practice of cross-referencing various sources, including information from other human rights mechanisms and United Nations entities. The diversity of sources allowed them to better evaluate information received. The chairpersons underlined the importance of maintaining diversity with regard to languages and expressed the opinion that, in general, States’ lack of compliance with reporting obligations was not only a matter of capacity, but also of political will, noting, however, that in the absence of additional resources and structural solutions, the current system could not cope with increased State compliance with their reporting obligations. While acknowledging the advantages of a comprehensive request for additional resources, the chairpersons cautioned about possible competition, and even conflict, among treaty bodies regarding the distribution of such resources and concluded that objective parameters would have to be drawn up. 41. On 22 May 2013, the chairpersons held informal consultations with civil society organizations and the International Coordinating Committee of national human rights institutions. A joint statement by 14 civil society organizations highlighted a number of priority areas for consideration by the chairpersons. All considered that the intergovernmental process provided a key opportunity for reminding States of their obligation to fully and effectively implement the recommendations and decisions adopted by the treaty bodies, to ratify all human rights treaties and their optional protocols, and to remove reservations that limited the scope of the treaties. Civil society organizations welcomed the alignment of the treaty bodies’ working methods, and, given the increase in reprisals against civil society organizations and human rights defenders, they called upon the treaty bodies to develop common guidelines to address reprisals and to appoint focal points with a broad and clear mandate to take all possible steps to prevent and swiftly address reprisals. They also stressed the importance of the private meetings between treaty bodies and civil society organizations related to State reviews. 42. In the ensuing dialogue, civil society representatives underscored the value of the international human rights treaty system as the only forum in which individuals and groups could claim their human rights, while the treaty monitoring system offered a measure of State accountability for human rights implementation that, in some cases, was the only 3 A/66/860. 9