protection. 2 Volume 3 contains a selection of decisions adopted from the thirty-third to thirtyninth session, Volume 4 a selection of decisions adopted from the fortieth to the forty-sixth session, Volume 5 covers the forty-seventh to fifty-fifth session, Volume 6 covers the fifty-sixth to sixtyfifth session, Volume 7 covers the sixty-sixth to the seventy-fourth session and Volume 8 covers the seventy-fifth to eighty-fourth sessions. 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 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. 11. During the period covered by the present volume, there has again been an 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 fine-tune 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 2007 report incorporating the ninetieth session in July 2007, all of the Committee’s Views and decisions declaring communications inadmissible have been published in full. 12. The Special Rapporteur on Follow-Up on Views also continued to review his working methods during this period. 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 in principle no longer considers follow-up information on a confidential basis but in public session. 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 format of decisions on admissibility and final Views adopted at the Committee’s thirtyseventh session in 1989, which was designed to achieve greater precision and brevity, continued to be followed during the period covered by the present volume. 14. An important development in terms of jurisprudence was the 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 particularly 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. French and Spanish versions were published in June 1988 (CCPR/C/OP/1). For an introduction to the Committee’s jurisprudence from the second to the twenty-eighth sessions, see A. de Zayas, J. Möller, 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 No. 1, 1989. For a more recent discussion, see Manfred Nowak, ICCPR Commentary, 2nd edition (Engel Verlag, 2005). 2 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Selected Decisions under the Optional Protocol (Seventeenth to thirty-second sessions), New York, 1990. French and Spanish versions were published in 1991. 2