Governments’ recourse to emergency powers to tackle the pandemic has put a considerable strain on the exercise of people’s fundamental rights and freedoms.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has started including questions on the impact of emergency related measures in the so-called “List of Issues” (LOIs) addressed to State Parties when they are due to submit their periodic reports on compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
In this paper, ECNL has reviewed the LOIs for six states that were due for reporting in 2021 and has identified those that address derogations to ICCPR obligations in time of public emergency (Article 4, ICCPR) and the impact of emergency powers on the “civic space” components protected by the ICCPR.
Our review shows that some questions included in the LOIs miss the opportunity to gather contextualised information based on the pre-existing situation in the country or do not cover all relevant aspects of civic space affected by the States’ measures.
Therefore, in this paper we aim to provide:
- Ad hoc recommendations to the Human Rights Committee on how to follow up with the selected States when reviewing their reports;
- Final recommendations to the Human Rights Committee to adopt a more homogeneous framework of LOIs;
- Recommendations to CSOs to integrate their States’ reports to the Human Rights Committee with their own evidence and information.