not immediately registered as cases. In fact, the number of authors who eventually submit cases for consideration by the Committee under the Optional Protocol is relatively small, partly because the authors discover that their cases do not satisfy certain basic criteria of admissibility, such as the required exhaustion of domestic remedies, and partly because they realize that a reservation or a declaration by the State party concerned may operate to preclude the Committee’s competence to consider the case. These observations notwithstanding, the number of communications placed before the Committee is increasing steadily, and the Committee’s work is becoming better known to lawyers, researchers and the general public. The purpose of the Selected Decisions series is to contribute to the dissemination of its work. protection. Volume 3 contains a selection of decisions adopted from the thirty-third to thirty-ninth sessions, Volume 4 a selection of decisions adopted from the fortieth to the forty-sixth sessions, Volume 5 covers sessions forty-seven to fifty-five, Volume 6 covers sessions fifty-six to sixty-five and Volume 7 covers sessions sixty-six to seventy-four. 11. During the period covered by the present volume, there has been once again a significant increase in the number of communications submitted to the Committee. The Special Rapporteur for New Communications of the Committee, whose mandate had been amended in 1991 to cope with the increasing caseload, has continued to further review and finetune his working methods. During the period covered by the present volume, the Special Rapporteur requested interim measures of protection in cases. 9. The first step towards wider dissemination of the Committee’s work was the decision taken during the seventh session to publish its Views: publication was desirable in the interests of the most effective exercise of the Committee’s functions under the Protocol, and publication in full was preferable to the publication of brief summaries. From the Annual Report of the Human Rights Committee in 1979 up to the 2005 report incorporating the eighty-fourth session in July 2005, all of the Committee’s Views and decisions declaring communications inadmissible, have been published in full. 12. So as to enable it to cope with an increasing number of registered cases and in order to avoid a growing backlog of pending cases, the Committee, during its eighty-third session, authorized the Working Group on Communications to adopt decisions declaring communications inadmissible if all members so agree. At its eighty-fourth session (July 2005), the Committee introduced the following rule 93(3) in its rules of procedure: “A working group established under rule 95, paragraph 1, of these rules of procedure may decide to declare a communication inadmissible, when it is composed of at least five members and all members so agree. The decision will be transmitted to the Committee plenary, which may confirm it and adopt it without further discussion. If any Committee member requests a plenary discussion, the plenary will examine the communication and take a decision.” 10. At its fifteenth session, the Committee decided to proceed with a separate project, the periodical publication of a selection of its decisions under the Optional Protocol, including certain important decisions declaring communications admissible and other decisions of an interlocutory nature. Volume 1 of this series, covering decisions taken from the second to the sixteenth session inclusive, was published in 1985 in English.1 Volume 2 covers decisions taken from the seventeenth to the thirty-second session and includes all decisions declaring communications admissible, two interim decisions requesting additional information from the author and State party, and two decisions under rule 86 of the Committee’s rules of procedure, requesting interim measures of 13. The Special Rapporteur on Follow-Up on Views also continued to review his working methods during the period covered by the present volume. In 1997, his mandate was formally reviewed, and changes to the mandate incorporated into the Committee’s rules of procedure. Under the revised follow-up procedure, the Committee no longer considers follow-up information on a confidential basis but in public session. Follow-up missions by the Special Rapporteur have also been suggested to States parties. 14. As in the past, there has been a steady increase in the number of individual opinions appended by members of the Committee to decisions on admissibility or final Views (rule 104 of the rules of procedure). It is noteworthy that many members have appended joint individual opinions, whether concurring or dissenting. Readers will find numerous examples of this practice in the present volume. 1 Human Rights Committee, Selected Decisions under the Optional Protocol (Second to sixteenth sessions), New York, 1985 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.84.XIV.2), hereinafter referred to as Selected Decisions, vol.1. For a detailed overview of the Committee’s jurisprudence under the Optional Protocol, see Manfred Nowak: ICCPR Commentary, 2nd edition (Engel Verlag, 2005). 2