Article by European Center For Not-For-Profit Law – 14 November 2019 (Updated 11 February 2020)
The UN Human Rights Committee concluded the first reading of the draft General Comment no. 37 on Article 21, ICCPR (Right to peaceful assembly) during its 127th session in October and November 2019.
The revised draft General Comment is available HERE in English, Spanish and French.
The Human Rights Committee is now inviting all stakeholders, including Member States, UN and regional bodies, organisations or specialised agencies, national human rights institutions, civil society, and academia, to send their comments on the new draft to ccpr@ohchr.org. The deadline for submission is 14 February 2020. The next reading and review of the draft General Comment is scheduled to take place between on 2-27 March 2020. Deadline has been extended until 21 February 2020.
ECNL is pleased to continue supporting the drafting process of the General Comment. To this end, in December we will convene an expert workshop early December together with University of East Anglia and the Centre of Governance & Human Rights (CGHR) at the University of Cambridge focusing on the potential for exercising the right to freedom of assembly online so that the premises for online assemblies’ effective and meaningful protection are laid out.
In addition, following up on our European regional consultation on the General Comment we held in September 2019, ECNL will also provide a brief summary of the points discussed with stakeholders and how the new draft benefited from their contributions. Watch this space for updates!