Thread by @vdraphael

JUST IN: 🇺🇳Human Rights Committee (responsible for monitoring implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - in short, the ICCPR) will review 🇭🇰#HongKong and 🇲🇴#Macau at its next session (27 June to 29 July)

Why is this review crucial? Read the🧵

The ICCPR is one of the ten UN treaty bodies: the committees of experts tasked with regularly reviewing how States implement the nine core international human rights treaties they ratified.

@ISHRglobal explains fundamentals on the treaty bodies here ➡️academy.ishr.ch/learn/treaty-b…

The Human Rights Committee (different from the UN Human Rights Council) is the expert committee that looks at how States respect, protect, and fulfill civil and political rights guaranteed in the ICCPR: ohchr.org/en/professiona…

Ratified by the UK in 1976...

... the ICCPR remained in force in Hong Kong after 1997, as stipulated in the Sino-British Joint Declaration.

Hong Kong has been already reviewed three times by the Committee: July will mark the fourth one.

China regularly bashes UN experts for their critiques, so why do treaty bodies matter so much?

Because are not 'imposed' on China: they look at a treaty the Chinese government willfully agreed to comply with and implement. They are seen as more expert & objective.

The Committee's review of #HongKong also couldn't come at a worst moment from the government's perspective: it first started in July 2020, a year after the Anti-Extradition Bill protests, and right before imposition of the National Security Law.

Before a country's formal review, the Committee adopts a 'List of Issues': a series of questions the Committee is particularly interested about, and that the government has to respond to.

It did so for Hong Kong back in July 2020: ishr.ch/latest-updates…

Already at that time, the Committee’s questions signaled key concerns around:
- National Security Law provisions
- police violence
- freedom of expression (incl. threats to academic freedom)
- freedom of peaceful assembly

The Committee will dig deeper into these issues in July.

In timely letter to the government, UN expert @NiAolainF determines that the 'ICCPR applies to to the implementation of the NSL,' incl. for those 'transferred to mainland China for
interrogations, prosecutions, and judicial proceeding'

Full letter here➡️spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/…

Now what?

Well, civil society can submit reports to the Committee up to three weeks before the session starts (by end of May).

This is crucial to better inform the Committee's work.

@ISHRglobal explains how in this handbook: ishr.ch/latest-updates…

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