The Reporting Procedure 4 4.2.2. Consideration of the report As mentioned earlier, the State party report may be submitted under the Standard Reporting Procedure or the Simplified Reporting Procedure and, depending on the procedure selected, the reporting cycle may comprise six or seven stages. The Simplified Reporting Procedure is generally offered to State parties for their periodic reports (see Chapter 4.3, The Simplified Reporting Procedure). The following sub-sections discuss the process of consideration of a State party report under both procedures (whenever information refers only to one of these procedures, it is clearly indicated in the text). Therefore, the following stages of the reporting cycle are explained in detail: adoption of List of Issues; replies to the List of Issues; constructive dialogue; and the concluding observations. The participation of the State party is not required at all these stages, but those stages which do require State party action need to be based on the key capacities of a NMRF, as follows: Consideration of the report Related NMRF key capacity i. Written replies to the LoIs Engagement and coordination capacities ii. Replies to the LoIPR (report of SP) Engagement, coordination, consultation and information management capacities iii. Constructive dialogue Engagement and coordination capacity i. Adoption of the List of Issues a) Preliminary review of the report – Standard Reporting Procedure Once a report is submitted, the Treaty Body holds a preliminary review of the report with a view to determining any additional information it may need to request from the State party. This internal discussion is often held during a so-called pre-session or country task force meeting. Such a meeting usually takes place several months ahead of the review, one or two sessions ahead of the session at which the Treaty Body formally considers the State party’s report. Treaty Bodies appoint one or two country rapporteurs or a country task force, which are responsible for drafting the List of Issues on any given State party’s report. The Treaty Body considers information included in the State party report, along with reports from other sources, and adopts a List of Issues or a List of Themes (CERD). The purpose of this list is to indicate to the State party any additional required information that may have been omitted from the report, that may be out-dated, or that members consider necessary for an assessment of the state of implementation of the treaty in the country concerned. The List of Issues provides the State party with advance notice of issues of concern to the Treaty Body, so that the delegation can be duly prepared. Most Treaty Bodies structure their constructive dialogue around the List of Issues or themes. It has become common practice for the UN system, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) to submit written information to the committee or brief a country rapporteur, country task force or the entire committee on the issues of particular concern to them, once a List of Issues is discussed and adopted (see Chapters 5 and 6). 51