REPORTING TO THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS TREATY BODIES TRAINING GUIDE: Part I — Manual competence of the relevant Treaty Body in that regard (by not opting out of the respective treaty provision or by becoming a State party to the Optional Protocol setting out the inquiry procedure). The procedure may be initiated once information complying with the criteria set out above is received by a Treaty Body. Then the Treaty Body will invite the State party to cooperate in the examination of the information received by submitting its observations. Based on the State party’s observations and other relevant information available to it, a committee may designate one or more of its members to conduct a confidential enquiry, which may include a visit to the State party concerned. The Treaty Body then would prepare a confidential report and send it to the State for comment. The procedure to conduct an enquiry is confidential although the Treaty Body may publish the final report or a summary thereof. Most treaties17 state that the committee may, after consultation with the State party concerned, decide to include a summary account of the results of the proceedings in its annual report.18 e) Urgent actions: the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) has the authority to receive urgent requests from relatives of a disappeared person – or their legal representative or any other authorized person – that a disappeared person should be sought and found. Once the Committee is satisfied that the request meets certain criteria, the Committee may request the State party to provide it with information on the situation of the persons sought within a time limit set by the Committee (art. 30). In very serious and urgent cases the Committee may ask the State party to adopt measures to avoid irreparable harm to the person concerned or for other information relevant to locating the disappeared person (interim measures).19 For its part, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) established the early warning and urgent action procedures which seek to prevent and respond to serious violations of the Convention. While early warning measures are to be directed towards preventing existing problems from escalating into conflicts, urgent procedures are needed in response to problems requiring immediate attention so as to prevent or limit the scale or number of serious violations of the Convention. Under these procedures, which may be initiated on the Committee’s own initiative or on the basis of information submitted by third parties, CERD may request information from State parties on relevant racial discrimination situations of concern and adopt a decision expressing specific concerns addressed to the State party in question. This decision can also be addressed to the Human Rights Council and its Special Procedures as well as to the High Commissioner for Human Rights and to the Secretary-General with a recommendation that the matter be brought to the attention of the Security Council, and the Committee can resort to further measures such as field visits.20 17 For example, article 11.7 OP CESCR, article 13.6 OP CRC, article 20.5 CAT. 18 In practice all Treaty Bodies have to date had the results of their findings published. CEDAW has included summaries of its findings or published the full report. CEDAW has recently taken a decision to publish all inquiry reports in the future. CRPD has done the same. CAT has always published the summary of its inquiry reports (which however are often quite extensive) while the full report has been published when the State party has consented to it. CED publishes the summary of all the information received in its annual report. Such summaries do not reveal the State party in question until it is given the opportunity to comment. After the comments are received the summary also indicates the name of the State party and includes its response in full length. 19 For more information see: Guidance for the submission of a request for urgent action to the Committee, see CED/C/4, 29 April 2014, available at the following: tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CED/C/4&Lang=en 12 20 Guidelines on early warning and urgent action procedures, Annual report A/62/18, Annexes, Chapter III (2007), are available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CERD/Pages/EarlyWarningProcedure.aspx