Andy, our last team member, arrived last night. Our next speech, on the Peru Truth & Reconciliation Commission will be presented this morning by Manpreet Dhanjal.
The Sub-Commission's deliberations are getting into high gear, with the first deadline for draft resolutions occurring last night. Further deadlines for additional draft resolutions will be imposed tonight. This then will pave the way for the voting on resolutions that usually takes up much of the last week of the Sub-Commission session.
Observers continued to add comments on Barb Frey's paper on small arms and light weapons. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both spoke in favor of the report and the importance of continuing to explore this subject. However, a spokesman from the NRA also was present; he urged caution against taking small arms away from private citizens, claiming that most acts of genocide in the 20th century would not have occurred if the civilian population would have been armed.
There was also an interesting debate late this afternoon on human rights treaty reservations, by Mrs. Francoise Hampson from the United Kingdom. Many of the human rights treaties, when they were originally ratified by countries in the 1970's and 1980's, took reservations for their own domestic religious beliefs. In some cases these reservations have been used to avoid compliance with important provisions of the treaties. Mrs. Hampson maintains that such reservations should not be given legal effect if they are "incompatible with the objects and purposes" of the treaty -- this is the test set forth in the Vienna Convention on Treaties. Other members, while agreeing with the basic principles set forth in Mrs. Hampson's paper, said that countries who claimed reservations on the basis of their religious beliefs would not have ratified the treaties at all had it not been possible to express these types of reservations.
Tomorrow the Sub-Commission will take up its Item 3 under the agenda, dealing with the administration of justice and the rule of law. Among papers that will be presented are a paper by Mrs. Zerrougui, the Sub-Commission expert from Algeria, on discrimination in criminal justice systems, and a paper by Mr. Decaux, expert from France, on military tribunals.