A/HRC/14/24 • Of the 15 countries that received the most communications, 7 failed to respond to more than 50% of letters they received: India (no reply to 16 of 18 letters), Iraq (no reply to 11 of 14 letters), the Sudan (no reply to 12 of 16 letters), Saudi Arabia (no reply to 16 of 22 letters), the United States (no reply to 12 of 18 letters), Brazil (no reply to 8 of 13 letters), and the Islamic Republic of Iran (no reply to 37 of 63 letters). This “response rate” may not necessarily be a good indicator of country cooperation in all cases. For example, countries that received the most letters are effectively being asked to cooperate with Special Procedures at a higher level, and, where many communications are sent, the country may not have the resources necessary to prepare responses. Or, the rate by itself may provide only partial information about responses. Brazil, for instance, has a poor overall response rate (62% no responses), but did submit 4 (31%) “largely satisfactory” responses. Likewise, the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose “no response” rate was 59%, submitted 9 “largely satisfactory” responses. • Of the 15 countries that received the most communications, those that performed relatively well in responding (where their “no response” rate was less than 30 percent) included Sri Lanka, China, Yemen, the Philippines, and Colombia. • Of the 15 countries that received the most communications, those with more than 30% of their responses categorized as “largely satisfactory” were: Colombia, Sri Lanka, China, the Philippines, and Brazil. • The response rate of countries receiving just one letter in the period under review was also low. Of the 27 countries which were sent one letter, 16 (59%) did not respond at all.g f g 26 sent to a country based on several factors, including whether an allegation was received by the Special Rapporteur (thus letters sent can depend on the resources and focus of NGOs and others), the ease with which information about incidents can be obtained, and the extent to which there were indications of an insufficient domestic response. Perhaps surprisingly, the greater proportion of communications sent to this small number of countries does not substantially skew the overall response rate. In order to assess this, the rate was recalculated on a number of bases. First, of the 15, those countries whose “no response” rate was greater than 50% were excluded from the calculation. This resulted in a slightly improved “no response” rate of 40%. (Excluding these countries (7 States), 359 communications were sent. Of these, there were 144 no responses.) If all top 15 countries are excluded, the response rate is 53% - roughly that of the overall rate. (Excluding the 15 countries which received the most letters, the total number of letters sent was 198. Of these, there were 105 “no responses”). Armenia, Argentina, Kuwait, Barbados, Fiji, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Liberia, Trinidad and Tobago, Namibia, Equatorial Guinea, Guyana and Peru.