friendly settlement between the parties, and, more im­ portantly, in that the Committee has no power to hand down binding decisions as does the European Court of Human Rights. States parties to the Optional Protocol endeavour to observe the Committee's views, but in case of non-compHance the Optional Protocol does not pro­ vide for an enforcement mechanism or for sanctions. 9. In its eleven years of existence, the Committee has received many more than the 288 registered com­ munications mentioned above. The Secretariat regularly receives enquiries from individuals who intend to sub­ mit a communication to the Committee. Such enquiries are not immediately registered as cases. In fact, the number of authors who eventually resubmit their cases for consideration by the Committee under the Optional Protocol is relatively low, partly because the authors discover that their cases do not satisfy certain basic criteria of admissibility, such as the required exhaustion of domestic remedies, 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 each year is increasing steadily, and the Committee's work is becoming better known to lawyers, research workers and the general pubhc. If this volume of Selected Decisions contributes to making the work of the Committee more generally known, it will have served a useful purpose. 10. The first step towards a wider dissemination of the Committee's work was the decision, taken during the seventh session, to pubhsh its views, that pubHcation was desirable in the interest of the most effective exer­ cise of the Committee's functions under the Protocol, and that publication in full was preferable to the publication of brief summaries. In the Annual Reports of the Human Rights Committee, beginning with the 1979 report and up to the 1987 report, covering up to the thirtieth session inclusive, all of the Committee's views (76), a selection of 29 of its decisions declaring communications inadmissible, and one decision to discontinue consideration have been pubhshed in full.' 11. At its fifteenth session, the Committee decided to proceed with the periodical publication of a selection ' See Official Records of the General Assembly, Thirty-fourth Ses­ sion, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 3 4 / 4 0 ) ; Thirty-fifth Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 3 5 / 4 0 ) ; Thirty-sixth Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 3 6 / 4 0 ) ; Thirty-seventh Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 3 7 / 4 0 ) ; Thirty-eighth Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 3 8 / 4 0 ) ; Thirty-ninth Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 3 9 / 4 0 ) ; Fortieth Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 4 0 / 4 0 ) ; Forty-first Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 4 1 / 4 0 ) ; Forty-second Session, Supplement No. 40 ( A / 4 2 / 4 0 ) . 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 sessions, inclusive, was published in 1985 in EngHsh.^ The present volume covers decisions taken from the seventeenth to the thirty-second sessions, inclusive. It contains all "views" adopted under article 5 (4) of the Optional Protocol, all decisions declaring communications inadmissible, one decision to deal jointly with communications, three decisions declaring communications admissible, two in­ terim decisions requesting additional information from the author and State party and two decisions under rule 86 of the Committe's provisional rules of procedure, re­ questing interim measures of protection. 12. With regard to the pubHcation of decisions relating to communications declared inadmissible or on which action has been discontinued; the names of the author(s) and of the alleged victim(s) are replaced by let­ ters or initials. With respect to decisions of an in­ terlocutory kind, including decisions declaring a com­ munication admissible, the names of the author(s), the alleged victim(s) and the State party concerned may also be deleted. 13. Communications under the Optional Protocol are numbered consecutively, indicating the year of registration (e.g. No. 1/1976, No. 288/1988). 14. At its fifteenth session, the Human Rights Com­ mittee discussed the usefulness of pubHshing a digest of the Committee's jurisprudence as reflected in its final decisions. Such a digest would facilitate a systematic study of the Committee's interpretation of the pro­ visions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and of the Optional Protocol thereto. Although the Committee has estabhshed a number of important precedents since 1977, its jurisprudence is still evolving. It is to be expected that in the course of the coming years, the Committee will issue the first volume of a digest of its jurisprudence.' ' Human Rights Committee, Selected Decisions under.the Optional Protocol (Second to sixteenth sessions). New York, 1985 (United Nations publication, Sales N o . E.84.XIV.2), hereinafter referred to as Selected Decisions . . ., vol. 1. French and Spanish versions were published in June 1988. ' For an introduction to the Committee's jurisprudence from the second to the twenty-eighth sessions, see A . de Zayas, J. Moller, T. Opsahl, "Application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under the Optional Protocol by the Human Rights Committee" in German Yearbook of International Law, vol. 28, 1985, pp. 9-64. Reproduced by the United Nations Centre for Human Rights as Reprint N o . 1, 1989.