a table might incorporate goals, objectives, activities, the agency or agencies responsible for carrying out each activity, the timetable for each activity and a description of the performance indicators that may be used to determine whether the activity has been carried out according to plan. Whether or not the published document is in tabular form, such a table may be useful as an “in-house” document for those responsible for developing, implementing and monitoring the plan. 9.6 Responsibility for implementation The plan should specify which agencies are responsible for implementing the various activities provided for in the document. This should extend to implementing partners such as civil society organizations. It should also extend, where appropriate, to provincial or local government agencies that have ultimate responsibility in certain areas. This issue is addressed in greater detail in sections 10.1 and 10.2. 9.7 Suggestions for the plan’s content The following outline is not prescriptive. The circumstances of each country will differ but users of the Handbook should consider drawing on each of the proposed areas to the greatest extent consistent with the situation in their country. Moreover, the proposals in the outline are not exhaustive. There will probably be other elements appropriate to individual countries that should be proposed for action within the plan. For more detailed guidance on the possible content of a national action plan, users of the Handbook are referred to the plans that have already been developed by various countries (see chapter 4). 9.7.1 International and national legal frameworks Suggested national action plan content: Commitments: • • • • • Ratification of United Nations or other international human rights instruments, including an outline of specific steps that the State will take to achieve this objective; Overcoming any delays that impede the State’s compliance with its reporting obligations, including the establishment of time frames; Withdrawal of any reservations the State has entered to international human rights instruments; Accession to optional protocols to human rights treaties, including complaint procedures; Incorporation of international human rights standards in domestic law and practice, including appropriate research and implementation steps. For over fifty years, the international human rights legal system has provided inspiration and guidance to all peoples and countries as they work to improve the observance of human rights. The effective operation of the international system and the widest possible engagement in it are fundamental objectives. Accordingly, the 77