Amendment of Rule 55a of the Assembly's Rules of Procedure (special guest status)
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- See Doc. 6875, report of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Rapporteur: Lord Finsberg. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 3 September 1993.
- Thesaurus
1. The Assembly considers that the states whose parliaments apply for special guest status (Rule 55a of the Rules of Procedure) should be formally bound by the two United Nations Covenants of 16 December 1966 on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
2. However, the present wording of Rule 55a, paragraph 1, which deals with this question could lead to some uncertainty as it requires states only to "apply and implement ... the two United Nations Covenants of 16 December 1966...".
3. With a view to clarifying this point as well as the meaning of the other obligations listed in Rule 55a, paragraph 1, the Assembly decides to amend this provision and to reword the text as follows: "The Bureau enlarged to include the chairmen of the political groups may grant special guest status to national legislative Assemblies of European non-member states which have signed the Helsinki Final Act of 1 August 1975, the Charter of Paris for a New Europe of 21 November 1990, accepted the other instruments adopted at the CSCE conferences, and which have signed and ratified the two United Nations Covenants of 16 December 1966 on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, if such Assemblies show an interest in being granted this status.**.This paragraph refers to the CSCE documents and the United Nations Human Rights Covenants and not to the European Convention on Human Rights, because the latter is not open to signature by non-member states of the Council of Europe, whereas all sovereign states are normally members of the United Nations and can thus accede to the United Nations Covenants and can also become participants of the CSCE if they are situated in the CSCE area."
