Recent decisions on procedures : . 10/10/2000.
A/55/40,paras.48-49. (Decision)

Convention Abbreviation: CCPR
Recent decisions on procedures

At its sixty-fifth session in March 1999, the Committee decided that the lists of issues for the examination of States parties reports should henceforth be adopted at the session prior to the examination of a report, thereby allowing a period of at least two months for States parties to prepare for the discussion with the Committee. Central to the consideration of States parties' reports is the oral hearing, where the delegations of States parties have the opportunity to answer specific questions from members of the Committee. Thus, States parties are encouraged to use the list of issues in order better to prepare for a constructive discussion, but are not expected to submit written answers. If they do, these written answers must be received well in advance of the examination of the report so as to allow for translation into the languages of the Committee members. This new practice was put into effect at the sixty-sixth session, at which the lists of issues for the sixty-seventh session were adopted. Experience at the sixty-seventh, sixty-eighth and sixty-ninth sessions has demonstrated that the change has been fully justified in practice.

At the sixty-sixth session, the Committee adopted new consolidated guidelines on States parties' reports, which replace all prior guidelines and are intended to facilitate the preparation of initial and periodic reports by States parties (see para. 15 above). These guidelines provide for comprehensive initial reports, written on an article-by-article basis, and targeted periodic reports primarily addressing the Committee's concluding observations and following, to the extent necessary, the article-by-article approach. In their periodic reports States parties need not report on every article, but only on those articles identified by the Committee in its concluding observations and those articles concerning which there have been important developments since the submission of the previous report. As was stated in the 1999 annual report, all earlier documents and guidelines on this subject are now superseded. The new guidelines were not published in the Committee's 1999 report (A/54/40), in view of the fact that the text in all languages had to be carefully checked. Minor drafting amendments were made at the Committee's 1784th meeting on 18 October 1999 and the guidelines were published under the symbol CCPR/C/66/GUI/Rev.1.