UN Human Rights Treaties

UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Distr.
GENERAL
A/3764/Add.l. 10 December 1957
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

Twelfth session Agenda item 33
DRAFT INTERNATIONAL COVENANTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS Report of the. Third Committee

Repporteur: Mr. Carlos Manuel COX. (Peru)
ADDENDUM FUTURE WORK ON THE DRAFT COVENANTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS
121. At the 834th meeting, Bolivia, Ceylon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador,.
Egypt, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Pakistan, Panama and Sudan submitted a
draft resolution (A/C.3/L.663) concerning future work on the draft Covenants.. Under
the terms of this draft resolution, the General Assembly, inter alia, (a) reaffirming
its resolution 833 (IX) which stressed the importance of the adoption of the
Covenants as soon as possible, (b) recalling its resolution 1041 (XI) by which it
decided that the Third Committee should devote enough time to the discussion of the
draft Covenants to be able if possible to complete them for adoption by the
General Assembly at its thirteenth session, and (c) noting that at the twelfth
session thirty-eight meetings had been devoted to the draft Covenants by the Third
Committee and only four articles had been adopted at that session while sixty-two
still remained for consideration, would recommend "that, at the thirteenth session,
appropriate steps should be taken to enable its Social, Humanitarian and Cultural
Committee to complete the draft International Covenants on Human Rights within the
time specified in resolution 104l (XI) of the General Assembly or within a time as
reasonably close to that time as possible".
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A/3764/Add.1
English Page 2
122. In support of the draft resolution it was pointed out that the United Nations
would be deceiving the hopes of the peoples of the world if it did not make a special
effort to speed up the adoption of the draft Covenants. At the present rate of
progress it would take some ten to fifteen years to complete the Covenants. It was
therefore essential that appropriate steps should be taken by the Assembly at its
next session to enable the Third Committee to complete the Covenants at that session
or within a time as reasonably close thereto as possible. For example, the
Committee might be asked to continue meeting beyond the normal duration of the
Assembly session; or to devote more meetings to the discussion of the Covenants' than
it had hitherto done. It was also suggested that the Committee might be able to
expedite its work on the Covenants if it fixed in advance the number of meetings to
be devoted to the consideration of each article. Some representatives stressed;
however, that in speeding up the work on the Covenants there should be no
curtailment of other items on the Committee's agenda. Some representatives also
expressed the view that any plan adopted should not entail additional expenditure of
funds.
123. A number of representatives felt that the Committee ought to have been given
sufficient time to study the proposal and appealed to the sponsors not to press the
draft resolution to a vote. The sponsors therefore agreed to withdraw the draft
resolution on the understanding that the main points of the proposal, as well as of
the debate thereon, would be reflected in the Committee's report. It was explained
that the primary purpose of the proposal was to alert Member States to the
importance of finding, at the Assembly's next session, Ways and means of speeding
up the work on the draft Covenants.