Hospitals & Asylums
Harmonized Symbol Numbers for Human Rights Treaty
Documentation HA-20-10-05
As part of the on-going process of
harmonization of the working methods of the seven international human
rights treaty bodies, we are happy to announce that agreement has been reached
within the secretariat on a set of harmonized symbol numbers for treaty body
documentation.
Symbol numbers are the reference numbers attached to all United Nations
documentation which, among other functions, allow accurate searching for
documents on the Official Documents System (ODS) (http://documents.un.org) and
the treaty bodies database (http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf).
For the purposes of the reformed system, documents fall into three general
categories: (1) sessional documents; (2) sequential documents; and (3)
documents relating to the State party reporting process.
All treaty body symbols use an element to identify the treaty and its
committee, as follows:
CERD/C Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination
CCPR/C Human Rights Committee
E/C.12 Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (indicating that the Committee is the 12th
committee of the Economic and Social Council)
CEDAW/C Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women
CAT/C Committee against
Torture
CRC/C Committee on the
Rights of the Child
CMW/C Committee on
Migrant Workers
(1) Sessional documents, such as the provisional agenda, have a a symbol based
on the relevant committee and the number of the session and a numerical
sequence.
(2) Sequential documents, such as the general comments, have symbols based on
the relevant committee and a numerical sequence only.
(3) Documents related to the State party reporting process, which include the
reports themselves, lists of issues and questions and concluding observations,
have a symbol based on the relevant committee, the three letter standard code
for the territory which forms the subject of the report, and the reporting
cycle or periodicity. The system makes it easy to identify all documents linked
to a single report as the root of each related document is the symbol of the
report itself.
Thus, for example, the documents related to the initial report of Timor-Leste
would be as follows:
CCPR/C/TLS/1 State Report
CCPR/C/TLS/Q/1 List of Issues and Questions
CCPR/C/TLS/Q/1/Add.1 Replies to List of Issues
CCPR/C/TLS/CO/1 Concluding observations
CCPR/C/TLS/CO/1/Add.1 Follow-up response to
concluding observations
Please find attached the full table of new symbol numbers which will apply to
documentation of all treaty bodies.
The implementation date for the new system is
We hope you find this new symbol more transparent and user-friendly.
___________________________________________
Treaties & Commission Branch
OHCHR-Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
website: http://www.ohchr.org
Division for the Advancement of Women
website: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/index.html
Note
You have received this notification because you are subscribed to the treaty
bodies listserv maintained by OHCHR. This list distributes information relating
to the recommendations of the seven human rights treaty bodies: the Committee
on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; the Human Rights Committee; the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; the Committee
against Torture; the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the
Committee on the Rights of the Child; and the Committee on Migrant Workers.
Should you no longer wish to receive these notifications, you may unsubscribe
from the following webpage: http://www.unhchr.ch/tbmailin.nsf/email?Openform
. Enter your email and click on "unsubscribe". New subscribers may
join the list from the same page.
**Please note that this list does not allow subscribers to post messages to
other subscribers.Incoming correspondance to the list email address is not
monitored. Please do not send messages to this address**
Technical Note:
If you do not already have access to Adobe Acrobat Reader to read these
documents in "pdf" format, you may download it at no cost from the
following webpage: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html#
.