1503 Procedures

The 1503 procedure is named after the number of the resolution passed by the Economic and Social Council of the UN in 1970 establishing a mechanism for complaints about “situations which appear to reveal a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights” in a country. In 2000 it was substantially revised by another resolution, 2000/3.

Although it has been invoked against both Ireland and the UK in the past, neither country is a natural target for the procedure, because human rights violations there pale by comparison with those in other more oppressive countries around the world (but it has been invoked against the USA in recent years). However, it may be useful in order to highlight laws or practices that have a particularly detrimental impact on particular groups, especially racial or religious minorities. The procedure may be more useful, though, for groups based here who want to draw attention to serious human rights violations elsewhere in the world.

As with many of the UN human rights mechanisms, the procedure is cumbersome and slow. If your case is urgent, see URGENT CASES.

All complaints should be sent in writing to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva (see table on the WORKING GROUP ON COMMUNICATIONS for the address).

Complaints should include:

• the name of the person making the complaint (although requests to treat the name as confidential will be respected);
  
• the facts on which the complaint is based;
  
• what steps have been taken to exhaust domestic remedies (see MAKING A COMPLAINT UNDER THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOLS), and with what outcome;
  
• which human rights it is alleged have been violated;
  
• why these violations constitute a consistent pattern of gross violations;
  

• what evidence exists to show that the violations are reliably attested. Media reports alone are unlikely to constitute sufficient evidence. Eyewitness reports, medical evidence and so on should be included;
  
• what remedy is sought.

The Secretariat will filter complaints and weed out any that they find to be manifestly ill-founded. The following criteria have been developed for deciding whether or not a case is acceptable:

• No communication will be admitted if it runs counter to the principles of the United Nations Charter or it shows political motivation.
  
• A communication will only be admitted if consideration shows there are reasonable grounds to believe - also taking into account any replies sent by the Government concerned - that there is a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
  
• Communications may come from individuals or groups who claim to be victims of human rights violations or who have direct, reliable knowledge of violations. Anonymous communications are inadmissible as are those based only on reports in the mass media.
  
• Each communication must describe the facts, the purpose of the petition and the rights that have been violated. As a rule, communications containing abusive language or insulting remarks about the State against which the complaint is directed will not be considered.
  

• Domestic remedies must have been exhausted before a communication is considered - unless it can be shown convincingly that solutions at the national level would be ineffective or that they would extend over an unreasonable length of time.

The Working Group receives 20 - 25,000 complaints a year, sometimes in the form of mass postcard campaigns. Only well-presented complaints backed by hard evidence are likely to be successful.

There is no time limit, but complaints must be submitted within a reasonable time of domestic remedies having been exhausted or proved useless. In order to be considered in August, complaints must reach the UN by early to mid May. Complaints received after that may not be considered until the following year. Also, governments must be given twelve weeks to comment on the complaint before the Working Group can consider them.

Complaints are passed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Sub-Commission’s five-person Working Group on Communications (see table). Copies of complaints are always sent to the relevant government, which is asked to comment. The Working Group meets for two weeks immediately after the Sub-Commission’s August session in Geneva. It considers the complaints, and decides, by majority vote of the whole group - not simply the majority of those present - whether to pass them on to the Commission’s Working Group on Situations (not included in this guide as there is no direct access to it) for consideration. This group is made up of five Commission members nominated by the five regional groups, with due attention being paid to rotation of members. It meets prior to the Commission session in the spring and makes recommendations to the Commission about how to deal with complaints.

Under the terms of the 1503 resolution, the Commission has the power to mount a “thorough study” of a situation or to send a fact-finding body to investigate, but in practice it uses these powers rarely if ever. The Commission tends instead to adopt other measures, and its established practice has now been codified in Resolution 2000/3, which sets out the following options:
(i) to discontinue consideration of the matter when further consideration or action is not warranted;
(ii) to keep the situation under review in the light of any further information received from the Government concerned and any further information which may reach the Commission under the 1503 procedure;
(iii) to keep the situation under review and to appoint an independent expert;
(iv) to discontinue consideration of the matter under the confidential procedure governed by Council resolution 1503 in order to take up consideration of the same matter under the public procedure governed by Council resolution 1235.

The procedure is confidential, which means that, beyond an acknowledgement that it has been received, the complainant will hear no more about it. The Working Groups and the Commission all meet in closed (private) session. Unlike the complainant, the government is kept informed, in the sense that the complaint is sent to them and they are given an opportunity to comment. When the Commission meets to consider complaints, the government is present and can put its case. The only information made public by the UN is a list of which countries, or more properly which human rights situations, were considered under the 1503 procedure by the Commission during the session and a list of which countries were dropped.

Although a frustrating procedure from the point of view of the complainant, the 1503 procedure is taken very seriously within the UN and governments prefer not to be under investigation. If a case gets through to the Commission, the government will have to explain itself before the UN’s most prestigious human rights body, made up not of experts but of representatives of 53 Member States.

In the unlikely event that the UK or Ireland were to appear on the list of countries under consideration in the future, questions could be asked in parliament or in the Dáil to try to penetrate the confidentiality of the procedure.