PART 1: Overview of the Human Rights Committee and the Committee Against Torture one week prior to each main meeting. Therefore, the HRC operates on a part time rather than a full time basis.31 The HRC performs its monitoring functions in four ways: – – – – Reporting Function. Consideration of Individual Complaints. Issuance of General Comments. Consideration of Interstate Complaints. 1.3.1 Reporting Function A State party to the ICCPR must submit an initial report one year after the ICCPR comes into force for that State.32 Thereafter, the State party must submit periodic reports at intervals dictated by the HRC.33 States parties are generally required to submit a report every four or five years.34 However, States’ reports are often delayed and the reporting mechanism tends to have a backlog of States, which have failed to report on one or more of the required occasions. The report should detail the State party’s implementation at the national level of the various rights in the ICCPR. The report should refer to relevant laws, policies and practices, as well as any problems in implementation. The report is examined in public session by the HRC in a dialogue with representatives of the State party, during which the HRC will seek clarifications and explanations from the State representatives on the contents of the report, as well as on apparent omissions from the report. The HRC members commonly receive information regarding the State from non-governmental sources, and even from international bodies, which assist the members in conducting an informed dialogue with the State.35 After the conclusion of a relevant dialogue, the HRC will debate in closed session the contents of its Concluding Observations on the State. Concluding Observations are then issued for each State party whose report has been examined in a particular session at the end of that session. Concluding Observations resemble 31 32 33 34 35 For more information about the work of the Human Rights Committee, read Civil and Political Rights: The Human Rights Committee fact sheet, available at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ Publications/FactSheet15rev.1en.pdf. Article 40(1), ICCPR. Ibid. See also HRC, Rules of Procedure, Rule 66(2). See Section 2.3.1 of this Handbook. For more information on the role of NGOs and other members of civil society, see Civil and Political Rights: The Human Rights Committee fact sheet, pp. 16–18, available at: http://www.ohchr.org/ Documents/ Publications/FactSheet15rev.1en.pdf. 33