29 The requirement that members should be independent and impartial raises some practical issues. Should a member be in the room when the treaty body reviews the country that nominated him or her? Should a member accept an invitation to attend a meeting in a country that the treaty body will review the following month? Should a member undertake a visit to a country already reviewed by a treaty body to encourage it to follow up on its recommendations? Should a member hold an important position in an NGO that works closely with the same treaty body? In 2012, the Chairpersons of the treaty bodies endorsed the guidelines on the independence and impartiality of members of the human rights treaty bodies (“the Addis Ababa guidelines”) and recommended that each treaty body should adopt them. By March 2015, most treaty bodies had done so.18 The Addis Ababa guidelines are also cited in General Assembly resolution 68/268, in which the General Assembly encourages the treaty bodies to implement the guidelines in accordance with their mandates (para. 36). It is important to underline that members should not only be independent and impartial, but also be seen by a reasonable observer to be so. In this regard, the Addis Ababa guidelines specify that members should avoid functions or activities which are, or are seen by a reasonable observer to be, incompatible with the obligations and responsibilities of independent experts under the relevant treaties. In other words, even if a member acts completely independently and impartially, there are situations in which his or her integrity might be called into question because of the context. The Addis Ababa guidelines apply the general principles to particular situations, including: participation in the consideration of State party reports and other aspects of the reporting procedure; participation in the consideration of communications; participation in country visits and inquiries; relationship with States; decisionmaking roles in any organization, such as CSOs or private corporations, that might appear not to be reconcilable with the principles of independence and impartiality; and preservation of independence and impartiality when taking part in external human rights activities, such as panels, training courses and seminars. In addition, a section on accountability puts the onus on individual members to act in accordance with their consciences, but also places a duty on the Chair of the treaty body and, ultimately, the treaty body as a whole to safeguard the requirements of independence and impartiality. A question which treaty body members often face relates to the role they should play when their own States come up for review. According to the guidelines, a member holding the nationality of that State party should not participate in or 18 T he Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee against Torture, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on Migrant Workers, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Committee on Enforced Disappearances have all endorsed the guidelines.