 with the two co-chairs so I will give also the floor to Isaiah to say few words. Isaiah over to you. Thank you very much Valerie and I just wanted to say thank you dear colleagues for making the time to join this event. This is an initiative that joins others that we do within the task team on human rights engagement where we engage with practitioners and with policymakers on key questions related to human rights. We really really look forward to the discussions. Welcome once again over to you Valerie. Thank you so much Isaiah and over to Elisa the second co-chair of the task team over to you. Elisa is the connection okay? Sorry okay can you hear me now? Yes we can hear you. Good evening good afternoon good morning. I was just mentioning to you that I hope you enjoyed the webinar and if you have any questions you can write in the chat box so that we will collect all the questions and make sure that then the panelists can respond. Thank you so much. Wonderful thank you Elisa and Isaiah. Excellent actually some of you might have participated in an event that the task team has conducted on 16th of September when we had three special procedures mandate holders and we discussed how we can practically use the special procedures in humanitarian work and one of the concrete recommendations of this event was to have a separate dedicated discussion on individual complaints mechanisms so this is why we are here really so your recommendation and we really hope that today you will not only learn new information but also take away with you very concrete examples on how you can practically use it in your day-to-day work and we would be very happy to hear from you afterwards how you have used it. So that we are all comfortable in this event you probably know the ground rules that we have usually in place so we will keep all participants on mute if you can keep the mute button if you are not speaking and we will receive the questions through chat so we will be constantly monitoring the chat as Elisa mentioned so please feel free to drop any questions you may have but any comment as well or idea that is related to the topic and we will get back to you whenever there is a time slot allocated to it. If you feel comfortable we are happy to on camera have more nice environment in this event but we also understand if there are technical constraints to do so. Excellent so I think we are ready to start and we are very fortunate today because we have two distinguished guests with us from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Federica Donatti the unit coordinator of the Special Procedures Mandate Holder's branch and Sagnik Chato Padhai human rights officer. So we have really the experts on the topic that will be presenting to us and sharing with us various examples and we are aware that some of you have already submitted questions in the registration form so I want to just to reassure you that we have taken on board all your questions share ahead of the event and we will address them as we go through the presentations and throughout this event so thank you very much. Any further delay I would like to give the floor to Federica over to you Federica please. Yes sorry Federica I think we don't hear you as of now. Sorry I need to move. Yeah I was saying that Sagnik and myself are very happy to have this space to to talk to you a little bit about the communication procedure of the Special Procedures mechanism is as Valerie and the other colleagues said it's really an informal exchange because you bring a wealth of experience and expertise already and it's good to to compare notes how we can really use this mechanism to the benefits of the of the duty bearer really. I will start sharing a power presentation which I hope it works and and maybe for those just so that we are on the same page you know for those who follow the previous webinar but for those who didn't follow just to to locate to you where the human rights system as Valerie said myself and Sagnik we work for the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that provides support and expertise to the human human rights mechanisms there is a specific branch called the Special Procedures branch for example which provides support to the thematic special reporters and as you know these mechanisms they are of two main types right there are the intergovernmental bodies that are based on the charter of the UN and this is for example the human rights council I'm sure you have heard about the council and then there are more the type of the independent expert bodies mechanism that there are the treaty bodies for example human rights committee committee on the rights of the child community on discrimination on discrimination against women and these are based on the on the on the treaty on the instrument that basically set them up and the special procedures which are independent expert independent individual expert or working group that are subsidiary bodies of the of the human rights council because because they are created and appointed by the human rights council so as a result by consequence of being subsidiary body of the human rights council they are also called charter based bodies because the council is based on the UN charter so this is just to locate you in one slide and then maybe just to remind you because here we are we are zeroing on special procedures mechanisms so just to remind you the basics of this mechanism these as I said are independent expert individual independent expert or we have a few that are called working groups because in fact is five individual experts that work together on automatic issues they monitor countries or automatic human rights issues as you will see there are 55 special procedures mandates but mostly they are thematic 44 and 11 only 11 are the country ones the country ones they look at all the human rights situation in a in a in a given country I heard a few country for example there is one for example just to give you an example on the Central African Republic the and there was one for example on on Eritrea I think some of you work on Eritrea whereas the thematic ones they look at you know at the whole world but just they zero in on one thematic expert or one thematic areas could be torture food right to food right to water and sanitation etc they can do many things this special procedures mechanism they have a mandate given to them by the human rights council as I mentioned what is what is you know they can conduct country visit and present official country visit reports they they present many thematic reports to the council where they they develop thematic research and other and other tools what is of relevance to us today is that they receive and consider direct complaints so submissions of alleged human rights violations so we are looking into that specific stream of work of the special procedures so what and we call it communication procedures you know this communication is a generic term a broad generic term but what are these communication basically this communication are just letters letters that the special procedures mandate told her mostly jointly so they they get together a few of them they sent to the government concern and and relate to alleged human rights violation or they could be also relating to acts of intimidation and reprisal against those who cooperate or seek to cooperate or have cooperated with the UN in the field of human rights so as I said these are just letters sent to the normally to the relevant governments we call them they are called in three different different ways but this is mainly a functional distinction and I think you know for external purpose is not the relevant but there are the urgent appeals that are really on a on an alleged violation that is ongoing and is very is a is a there is a danger to life is a life-threatening situation that is imminent for example we use a lot urgent appeals for executions for forced eviction etc so really there is a time sensitive nature in the urgent appeal and usually is to ask the government to stop to hold the the violations the allegation letters are those that relate more to alleged violation that occurred already so is after they have occurred so what we obviously ask the government is more to investigate to bring the perpetrator to justice to provide remedies to the victims and obviously to take measure to prevent the reoccurrence of this alleged violation we call other letters and then there is another group that is called other letters these are those letters because the rapporteurs can receive information on alleged violation we will see it later of individuals and group but also they can receive information when a legislation or a policy for example is not compliant with international human rights norm and standards so these are we call them as I said functionally other letters and is basically to to to to inform the government that there are concerns about a particular legislation or policies the main purpose of this communication or letter is really to obtain clarification and to really say you know we have received this information what else can you tell us about this and what are you basically doing this is not a determination of whether a violation has occurred or not there isn't such a determination is more the the purpose is more to engage in a dialogue with the government on the particular case and situation so as I kept on mentioning the government obviously uh you know the the duty bearers are mostly government so the most most of these letters are sent to government but they are also sent to international organization one state actors including businesses sometimes they are sent to the UN because this special procedures mandate orders are independent even from the UN as you know they are not paid they just have a UN mandate but they remain independent from anyone who can submit complaints the victims they are representative that could be the families the lawyers and organization and NGOs everyone can basically submit information on alleged violations the sources are always kept confidential special procedures never disclose their sources and this is is a is a principle very dear to the special procedures way of working and working modalities the communication as I mentioned briefly can concern any individual or more than an individual a group a community but they can also concern legislation policies that are not compliant or they allegedly not compliant with the international human rights norm and standards there are because these procedures I mean you probably see it you know when we get to the end is is quite flexible there are very few admissibility criteria which are I have listed it here and you can see it one may be more very important thing to bear in mind also is that the special procedures they can detect only on the basis of media reports as you see the last the last point that this is this is very important so the submission is absolutely key as well as obviously when when the special procedures I'm not going into it but when special procedure receive a communication they also sorry a submission they also try to collaborate through other sources through our colleagues in the field of you maybe you may have received the request already but we can discuss later now what what also you have to bear in mind that it's very important is that these procedures is remains confidential for a while but only for a while so for a maximum period of 60 days the the the the the procedure remains confidential meaning it's an exchange of letters between the rapporteur and the government or the other addresses so but then following after the 60 days periods we publish these letters that are sent to the government as well as the replies that they may have been received in the in the meantime and these letters are publicly available in a link that we will also show later which is a sort of a is a searchable site where you can see for example for your the country where you work or you know the thematic area that you are covering you can see all the communications that were sent and the reply received the only exception to this period of 60 days of confidentiality period is basically this letter that I mentioned to you are called other letter and are the ones legislation and policies these are usually made public 48 hours after they are sent to the government and this why why is that first of all because there are no individual concerned so is we are not talking about an individual or a group of or a case of groups of individuals and usually because what happens is that these letters are relate to legislation that is in in the making that is being discussed in parliament so there is a debate in at the country level right about this legislation or policy so it's important that the analysis of the special reporter on the whether the legislation complies or not with international humorous standard is available you know while the debate is ongoing and not maybe 60 days after when the debate probably is over because parliament has adopted or the whole procedure has moved forward so and other than in this site these communications sent and the replies received are also made publicly available in what we call communication report this is a report that is presented three times a year to the human rights council as you know there are three sessions of the council per year so every at every session we basically submit a communication report which is the compilation of the communications sent by the reporters and the replies received in a certain period of time what about feedback right because you say you are you submit an information and then because and you say so what happens how do i know because you know there is this confidentiality period so that yeah that's that's a bit of an issue in a sense that if that we cannot and the reporters cannot really tell you much during this confidentiality period even if you are the source of information if you have submitted the information uh the reporters can tell you if action has been taken so you know and sometimes that also there are a bit of a back and forth no between us on behalf of the special operators and the sources because maybe there are some details that are missing etc etc so and so the what we can tell you is if action has been taken but we cannot give you a copy of the letter we cannot you know provide you more information in that confidentiality period so what we will tell you is please keep on checking this site for when the text of the actual letter will be publicly available so i know this is a bit first i mean we understand this is a bit frustrating for the sources who would like to know more particularly if action has been taken because we know that the sources need that also for their advocacy work on the ground but is we are trying to preserve as i said this confidentiality period which is not there for nothing it's really to try and and have this dialogue so that the government takes steps and measure to redress the the violation so just what is very important and i i i i left it for for this slide only is also to remember that we the special procedures also take very seriously they don't know how principle so the protection concern that they may be around the victims so that's why we also ask for consent so in the you know when you when you when someone sending information about an alleged violation that we always want to make sure that there is consent and this consent is informed consent informed what does it mean what does it comprise this informed consent first of all that the victim consent to have the case taken up by a UN mechanism the special procedures mechanism because the name of the victim will be in the letters that is sent to the government this confidential letter that is sent to the government right so that's that has to be made very clear to the victim and they have to consent then what we ask is also whether the victim consent to have the name available publicly available in the in the verse in the communication that will be made publicly available 60 days after it is sent this is not compulsory if there are protection concerns we don't make the names public in the in the communication that will be available on the site so we we we deduct names and details they may identify the victims and we do that already by default in certain cases if for example the victim is a child is a child if there are issues of sexual violence gender-based violence etc we do it by by default in all other cases we need the consent the victim to have or not the name available in the in the communication that will be made public and this is as I said is because this is a way to preserve the do no harm principle because as you know special procedures they don't really have the means to to provide any physical protection to the victim right on on the ground so we need to I mean it has to be clear that that's why we we are really insisting on on consent and there have been cases where we didn't we couldn't take send any communication because it was too risky for the victim to have even the names put in the included in the letter to the government just for you to flag a few things one is that we have a working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances and a working group on arbitrary tension that have a slightly different communication procedures because they are very for historical reason these are very old mandates started in the 80s and so for there and the working group on enforced and involuntary disappearances has also a bit of a humanitarian mandate so which is very close to what the work you do so and the working group on arbitrary tensions makes the termination on whether a detention has been arbitred so because of this specificity that they have us like they have also their own slightly different communication procedures we are not going to go into the details today but obviously we remain available through Valerie or directly to to give you more information on this on these two working groups and just please bear in mind which as I said this is not a judicial or quasi judicial complaint mechanism as I said there's no determination on whether a violation has actually occurred but on the other hand ratification of a treaty is not necessary so you know from any country any anyone can submit information on any thematic issue there's no need for exhaustion of domestic remedy so if you know the source feels that even if there is a proceeding going on at the domestic level that they want to alert also the international level that is absolutely possible and also you know the the independence of the mandate is also key obviously to keep this procedure very agile because I hope that I was able to to to demonstrate it is a rather flexible and agile procedures including if you compare it with other UN human rights mechanism available now clearly there are also limitation and one limitation as I said because it's agile because it's flexible there are very little very few admissibility criteria you know basically many submissions are actually somehow admissible and you know could be acted upon but obviously not isn't the special procedures cannot take action on every single complaints or submissions that they receive so you know basically whether an expert decide to take up or not a complaint is at ease or her own discretion and you know they they they usually you know work out certain strategy a certain strategy around communications because they want to maybe take up more cases from a certain regions or maybe they they want to take more cases from you know that relate to a specific thematic aspects of their of their of their mandate etc so the idea they they usually work out they want to take up emblematic cases because you know just illustrative of a of a pattern in a particular country so they usually try to work out strategy on how to use the communication procedures because they're very well aware that for a number of reasons they cannot take action or send communication on every single submission and case that is brought to their attention I including here some statistics um voilà I'm not gonna go through it also they are a bit old 2019 I mean hopefully by the end of this year we'll have the 2020 the 2020 statistics so and here is basically my last slide which is on useful links that I think will get us to the next phase that Sagnik will will take over is that right yeah I'm not seeing anyone thank you so much thank you so much for this very succinct summary very useful one and I want to reassure all participants that we will share the presentation afterwards with all the links and you will have access to it I would like to encourage colleagues also to keep posting questions if you have in the chat box and at the meantime I give the floor to Sagnik for the continuation of the presentation over to you Sagnik please thank you Valerie thank you colleagues thanks for inviting in this session this morning I will start with responding the questions that we have already received and in that regard we'll take you through the links that Federica mentioned I'm just trying to present my screen here um sorry first can you see my screen yes we can see it well thank you thank you actually we received a question that said that asked what the audiences tell us about efficiency of complaint mechanism of the special procedures now as Federica was explaining it is not surprising that the states and their elected representatives make efforts to respect and comply with the requests made by these independent experts in this in this is a special procedure so it's such a website and I will show you how to go to the special procedure it's under here on the human rights body bodies if you click on the special procedures under this side we have the managed holders the work of special procedures and here is a link to the submitting complaints to the special procedures it took it has got three links the first one talks about the communication procedure um the the details that Federica already shared with you what the what are the communications what are the purposes what do communications address in all these details and then here is the portal the link to the portal through which you can make the submissions and this can be in the three languages here it is in English in French and Spanish basically it is for now these are the only three languages in which we have the internal capacity to to digest the submissions and also prepare them for the managed holders to send the letters and we were we were and actually these submissions they they are confidential they are secure there is no way and we have ensured that there is no way to breach the confidentiality or the submission system and supposing if someone starts making a submission through any of these links the information that you have posted in it will remain available for 48 hours after which it will be automatically deleted so at the start of the submission you'll be provided with a username and an identifier so every time you can come back I mean you can come you can come back as many times as you want but there's there are there are the criterias that of the questions that you have to answer clearly giving us as much as information as possible as necessary for the submissions to be then processed inside by the by the staff for for sharing with the managed holders so this is the the portal through which anybody anywhere in the world can with an internet access obviously can make a submission directly and this is much more secure much more confidential and as much more agile in that sense otherwise people can send by email by letter also but that is that is actually well that's what it is I mean we cannot do anything better than that for the moment and but anyway we accept those letters also other than that as Federica mentioned on the on the communication side here is a link to the search communication for search the communication that have been sent and replies the system from the government after six days in this regard you would see this is the portal this is the microsite the reporting site where you can search for communications it is in three parts the first is a basically a searchable database which gives access to all kinds of search possibilities that is you can search through through the session of the council to which the report has been submitted whether the reply was received by which mandate you can filter by mandate by states by regions and by any search term say by refugees by refuellement by arbitrary detention anything and for now we have communications that are searchable as of from 1st of December 2010 and we are making efforts to get communications before that period also available through the database but that is going to take time and it is as it is quite a quite a old period anyway the last one that I would like to show you is basically as I was saying how the the communications make a difference now if you go back to this page sorry collecting good directly here here for the under the special procedures we have a link here where we are posting collecting good practices and stories of of successes following interventions by special procedures under this title making a difference whereby good collection of stories have been already posted for example I mean this talks definitely about the efficiency of the system about the about the contribution they make to the better understanding of the situations and provide solutions that consolidate human right awareness and standards of actions in this regard but we we understand all that no country is perfect in implementation of human rights standards and therefore managed holders they make recommendations on a diverse range of issues to all countries with the with the sole intent of protecting human rights of all and for all now I will just highlight three cases this can you can find it from here on 7th of October the special procedure experts praised Canada for repatriating a five year old orphan from from Syria camp and this actually was requested by the reporters to come to Canada and which the government really took note of and they obliged then another example a court in Malawi took action based on communication procedures of the of the communications of the special procedures by which a communication was sent by the reporters on violence against women and the working group on discrimination against women and girls concerning alleged sexual assault by police officers in long way in long way and following the letter a high court judge delivered a judgment that found the police actions in violation of human rights law and ordered arrest perpetrators within 14 days and that the applicants be compensated for their torture and violation of rights similarly I mean there are lots of examples you will you will find all throughout throughout this this this particular link and you can go through them under different these headings that legislative reforms that has happened policy reforms contributions to government and judicial processes raising human rights awareness all of these basically they are an effort of special procedures operations as a whole but many of them come also from the communication systems if I can if you allow me I will just also quickly take up another question that we had received earlier is that which asked that how can we engage human rights mechanisms to protect refugees where asylum governments infringe rights and ensure that hostile governments do not retaliate by shrinking the humanitarian space now this is indeed a challenge to as Frederica said to provide physical safety and security to refugees less governments comply with human rights in this regard as she mentioned that it is also important to select cases that assure the do-know-how principle and therefore it's very very important to receive proper consent from the victims that is as she explained consent to disclose the name to the authorities because that's that is also needed otherwise we do not may not have a meaningful dialogue with the government and also to but that's optional as she mentioned to have the names disclosed public reports as well as you saw from the from the communication and reporting site that these communications are reported in the in the website and but we can protect the names if the if the victims they say that they do not want the names to be shared in the public report we can protect the names and by default as she mentioned also the children names and name of some particular victims are by default protected but we have to be very clear in getting this consent from the victims while while processing the informations or submitting the informations for making us for making the communications requesting for the communications now special procedures have been consistent in intervening in cases of refugee refuellement deportation of asylum seekers secret detentions especially in life-threatening situations as well as a separation of children from their parents people escaping religious persecutions and many more situations across the world I mean communications in these regards have been sent to many countries for example they have sent them to Sweden US Denmark South Korea India Uzbekistan Central France Italy and everyone the experts have also intervened in cases of negative stereotyping of refugees and migrants on alleged acts of discrimination violence detention and processing centers raising various I mean there is the concerns on negative stigmatizations and rhetoric towards refugees and migrants including xenophobic attacks unfortunately governments they do retaliate and they had been and but through the communications they are actually required to respond also require to respond to this to their actions and that's where it kind of gives them a sort of responsibility to also submit a reply which would be under the global scrutiny where people would be all looking at as to what has been the defense of the government for these kinds of interventions and therefore they are they think twice also I mean because after all when they become aware that these situations of violations are under the scrutiny of these independent experts and there is a possibility of asking follow-up questions following up on these issues definitely it makes these governments not only aware of the plights if they were not aware before but also cautious about these violations and well it may not guarantee the physical safety but can stop ongoing violations and make the these these perpetrators cautious also from repeating the harms but it we need to keep in mind that the mechanisms are dependent on the national authorities to protect and prevent on the human right violations I think I'm I will stop here I will stop Valerie and I will give back back to you thank you so much Zagnik and Federica for the presentation and the useful elements shared and also responding to some of the questions and I would suggest that we give back to you several questions we received through the chat and also adding some of the questions received ahead of this event so we can start with this first round of questions and at the end colleagues can think about other questions and we will then go back through a second round of questions so taking up received so far one of the questions to you to OCHR is what if the thematic mandate overlap or it involves several violations the violence involves several mandates what is the process how does it work do the special procedures collaborate etc so this would be a free of question a second one is question whether special procedures collaborate with other mechanisms such as for example treaty bodies and UPR what are their synergies to have a joint strategy to address and tackle an issue if there is a communication between the mechanisms and ahead of the session we also received a question asking what is the difference or comparative advantage of use of the individual complaints procedures of special procedures instead of other complaints mechanisms so what is the difference and in which case to use which one third question is of course when let's say in UNHCR case persons of concern to UNHCR refugees the internal displaced persons stateless persons asylum seekers take up an issue two special procedures there is certain expectations that there will be an action so do you have any guidance or is there any example how to manage those expectations if for example an agency is guiding this individual throughout the process a fourth question is to which I think you have already responded partially or fully when communications does the center remain anonymous so can we ensure the anonymous aspect in certain cases and finally I would like to take up a question that we received ahead of this event there were actually several ones that were asking more concretely to UNHCR what UNHCR has done in the past how we have used this mechanism what are some of the concrete examples so for this I would like to ask my colleague Peter to give the UNHCR perspective to respond to UNHCR colleagues on this call very good so maybe actually because for Peter it's just one question I will start with Peter and then go to Federica and Sagna if okay for you excellent so over to you Peter please thanks Valerie yes I'm happy to share a couple examples of how UNHCR has used the special procedures communication process I'll talk in general because we engaged with with these mandates on a confidential basis providing information and supporting the work they were doing one is a more traditional type of engagement procedure where we saw asylum seekers and migrants crossing into Europe and we were seeing a lot of violations of human rights and human rights abuses at borders and entry points and we had in this in one of our operations tried through the representative's office through the UNCT to raise this issue with the government and we'd received no replies so there was a need to elevate the the issue and one of the things that the representative did was in contact with the special procedures and one of the mandate holders we provided information on the ground related to the situation and a communication was sent an official letter was sent by the the special rapporteur to the government requesting information on the situation of course the the government came back and replied to that communication they denied human rights violations but we were able to get an official response to the government on this on the record and into the public domain and this provided a lot of support for the advocacy that's the UNHCR and the UNCT were doing to try and improve the situation on the ground so even though it didn't receive necessarily the exact response we wanted from the government it did bring the issue to light and was then able to support the work we were doing so that's one example another example moving to another part of the world is a case of an individual who was an activist a public activist and also a religious figure and this individual had fled this country of origin after facing death threats and other risks of arrest or for blasphemy and other other potential crimes and had fled into another country however in this in this other country they did not have necessarily a guarantee that the government would provide them with protection under for example refugee legislation so one of the things they did was reach out to the special procedures branch who then in contact with the UNHCR was able to verify some of the circumstances around this individual's case and as for Rika mentioned one of the principles is doing all harm so one of the things that was done was proceeding through an official communication process an official letter alternate channels were figured out to to respond to this individual case and to see what other possible solutions could be available keeping that option of a letter to the to the government available but then working with other partners UNHCR some states some permanent missions to arrange and see what solutions could be found for this individual so that they wouldn't be put at risk either through a public communication or in the event that they they were returned so those are just two examples we have more we have a good practice guide for UNHCR colleagues of some of the examples of where UNHCR is engaged with special procedures generally not just on communication so if your UNHCR staff you can reach out to us for that they can give you some inspiration ways we've used it in the past and we also have a guide which I can put in the chat shortly which looks not just at its special procedures communications but also at the communications of the treaty bodies as well also as a as a tool and resourceful for you it links to many of the resources that that's Sagnik and don't know I'm sorry excuse me Frederica have also mentioned here today so let me just share that on the screen momentarily it's not anyway it's not popping up on the screen but I will put it in the chat it's just a UNHCR resource that that collects a lot of the information that was presented so I think those two examples are are emblematic of the way UNHCR has been engaging on different ways through the communications and I turn back to Valerie for the other questions thank you Peter if you can stay online because when you were presenting we received additional question asking if the human rights liaison unit is available to guide UNHCR colleagues to towards which special rapporteurs mandate to go when they are human rights violations so if this is a function that human rights liaison unit can assist with over to you absolutely we received lots of requests from the fields on a regular basis about this this procedure how it can be used and also how we can facilitate the communications with the mandate holders themselves and their teams so we have and are currently working with with many mandate holders on ongoing cases and helping to find solutions that are both useful for the individual the UNHCR's operation and the mandate as well so we're always on standby to provide that support just as needed okay thank you Peter for responding to the questions of UNHCR colleagues and I'm turning back to Sagnick and Federica to respond to the first lot of questions please over to you thanks shall I shall I start Sagnick yes thank you thank you very much colleagues also for the great great questions and that raises some important points the first question I know it was the thematic overlap and that involves several violations yes absolutely almost all of the the submissions we receive relate to alleged violations that are that that are violations of more than one human rights as you know the independence of human rights is is there and so probably you know that same case would fall into many many of the thematic mandates but I mean I didn't mention it I didn't prolong myself on this but basically as you will see in the statistic 80 percent or plus of all the communications sent are actually sent jointly by by two or more thematic special procedures mandate because of the interdependence of all data case will most probably relate to a human rights defenders who has been arbitrary detained has been arrested who's right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association has been violated and there you have already I already mentioned at least four and Mondays that would join such a communication which also if I may add I mean I think that the examples Peter mentioned are a great example of you know the the type of collaboration that can be between you know OHCHR which is mandated to support the special procedures and UNHCR and other and other agencies that are very operational on the ground and it's great that you know UNHCR has this human rights liaison unit that also is very knowledgeable about how to use the international mechanism the UN human rights mechanism I though wouldn't worry much about you know what you know from an external point of view I wouldn't worry much about to to figure it out which mandate that would fit best under because this is something this is an assessment that we also do you know once we really we receive they allege the the submission we look at the case and then we make an assessment say this could be of relevance to one two three four thematic mandates or eventually a country mandate because if there is a country mandate the country mandate will also join will be actually sort of in the lead right so I wouldn't worry too much unless you have a very you know strategic how do you say rational for not having a mandate joining a particular communication then yes then you may need to flag it to us let's say you know for strategic reason this mandate should not be joining the communication on this case whatever you know but it's better that other mandate take it up in that case we need to know it because this reason may not be evident to us you know like not very close to the ground but other than that I think that you shouldn't worry too much you submit if you use the online questionnaire you can you can you can choose more than one mandate but that choice it doesn't mind it's not binding because as I said we will do our own assessment this is just so to complement what what Peter said just to add one one point I mean on this you know issue of online submission form you would be allowed to to add at a maximum of five mandates which you think is very relevant to the to your case that is you can make your choice but it may not I mean if we internally while assessing your case we find that there is perhaps not not the mandate you select but a different mandate would be actually be more relevant we will make the changes assessments internally and we will invite the relevant mandates who will be most appropriate for your submission so as as as said don't worry about whether you have missed any mandate or whether you have selected the most appropriate mandate or not but make sure you what you provide as the information is full complete and as in as many in all respects as possible we will also internally do our verification analysis and if necessary we'll come back to you for more questions before we develop the the final letters from the mandate holders voila back to you thank you the second one was collaboration with other mechanisms yes of course we collaborate bearing in mind that these all each has his own characteristic distinction UPR is a member state led mechanism it doesn't look into individual cases so you know what what treaty bodies yes they look into individual complaints but they they have they have set more rigid if you want set of procedures which then would link also to the next question what we what we try to cooperate a lot is on the follow-up of of recommendations because UPR because it's a lead state led process that ends up in making a recommendation to the state that is examined so they usually pick upon the recommendation made by special procedures whether this communication whether this recommendation have been made mostly have been made in country visits because that's where you find them the most comprehensive set of recommendation on a country and obviously the UPR will automatically pick those recommendation and follow up in when they do the review of the of the state right but they could also pick up recommendations that come out of communication not not communication on individual cases but if there was a communication for example on a legislation they could pick up that recommendation as well when they review the state they review the state so in this sense treaty bodies similarly when they do the state review there is a lot of follow-up on the of the of the recommendation of special operators sometimes there are with the treaty body we also try to collaborate in follow-up you know in following up on certain individual cases we try also to collaborate in ways that says okay but if you have a case submitted to you and for your set of criteria is not admissible you can always redirect the source that's submitted that information to you to the special procedures because probably for the special procedure the same case may be admissible because the the admissibility criteria as I said are very few for for special procedures where are more rigid for complaints for treaty body complaint procedure and this links to the third question you know what is the added value or the the advantage comparative advantage of the special procedures complaint mechanism is exactly that is very agile and is very flexible and as I said you don't have you know a treaty body you would need your state to have ratified that particular treaty you would need to demonstrate that the case has exhausted domestic remedies or why couldn't exhaust domestic remedies and there may be other admissibility criteria that you need to fulfill I don't sorry I don't have all the detail list but you know so in in in that sense it it may be more rigid to to move the case beyond the admissibility phase and and as a result and then it takes very long and I think it takes pretty long to go through these procedures with treaty bodies at the end the whereas at least if the communication is sent by a special procedures Monday to order after 60 days you would have the the letter that was sent publicly available and then there's the agency as Peter mentioned the agency the young country team the organization the NGOs on the ground can use it for their advocacy purposes even as Peter said even if the reply is a denial and there are many of this reply that arrive and deny absolutely everything you know it's always useful to to have that publicly available you know for for your advocacy whereas for a for a treaty body to come up with the with the with the with the say ruling or yeah determination of the case it may take quite long the what you have in reverse from treaty body is that they make a determination so they say this was a violation of article so and so of the treaty and as a result you know it was the government committee torture or the government you know arbitrary detain someone and things that you have that determination which in most cases you don't have by by special procedures then I take the last question which is sender is always anonymous yes not for us but for the for the government yes as I said we don't disclose the sources so so absolutely but we for us no we need to know who the submitter is and there is a section even the online questionnaire the the fourth question is a bit more complex because yeah they how to manage the expectations the expectation absolutely this is super important expectation should be managed because you know these mechanisms are obviously are at the international level they are mostly advocacy based procedures so you know it's not that by by going through these procedures with the letter that is public available there will be immediate changes on the ground you know as you as you all know better than than than me you know is a combination of various sections that then eventually lead to a to a positive outcome so it's not that will the letter sent to the government on a case will do magic for that case particularly in relation to changing the actual situation on the ground and the lives of people on the ground but is another contribution it comes from the international level and that's as Saganic mentioned many states they don't like to be exposed to international level scrutiny and and and that but you know it it's it's a contribution that together with other action that may be taken at the ground level at the at the national level etc may may bring to to a positive solution so it's important to explain the the somehow to the victims what are the limits of these procedures I mean what could be beneficial eventually but could what are are the limits and we mentioned physical protection is a big limit and as well as even leading to concrete result is not that automatic it can and as Saganic demonstrated we are trying to collect all these cases that the the intervention was a special procedures together with other actions led to to a positive to a positive outcome I think it's important that you as UNHCR organization you also tell you know these are independent experts and whether they take up a case is at their discretion because they are independent so as I mentioned they are even dependent on the UN it doesn't mean that we we if we say okay we receive that this submission it looks like an important case is a complete all sets of information in there etc it doesn't mean that the rapporteurs that will necessarily do as we advise right so they they they have their ultimate decision as I said so you may also want to explain that to to them to to the victims and but usually I think as Peter mentioned we we we can together with you that are advising the the the victims or the organization on the ground and us you know you know if we get together to find the best the most effective avenues the most effective ways I think in the end we have the you know the we can probably have the rapporteur taking up the case just to add just to add one point to on that Federica just the just going back to the second question on collaboration with other mechanisms uh special procedures I mean other human art mechanism as she as you mentioned Federica is also there's a bit of strict requirements with pretty bodies and EPR that doesn't always fall in line with the flexibility and agility of special procedures but the special rapporteurs uh some in the past have actually collaborated with regional mechanisms like with the African Commission of Human Rights and also Inter-American Commission uh rapporteurs uh at times they have collaborated and have taken up cases so yeah there is a kind of possibilities also that has been experimented by by in in the past by the by the special procedures um yeah and as you rightly said comparative advantage is definitely I would say lies with social procedures because of our low level of admissibility criteria and definitely we can uh we will be much more uh fast in responding I'm not at 60 day mark and even earlier for for for the cases where we are discussing about the legislations or policies well I think I'll stop at that thank you so much Federica and Sagnik for very clear responses to the questions uh we have another set of four questions so I will go back to you and thanks to all colleagues who are very active in the chat box so uh the first question is uh do the special procedures also use tools such as amicus courier letters are they using this opportunity this is the first question and the second question is as you mentioned why there is no need for exhaustion of domestic remedies if the same case is pending for instance at the level of national court would this bear great weight in determining whether the special procedures would act uh on a certain case so this is a second question and then we have two questions which uh are uh related in a way so in situations where for example this state may not have a control of certain territory and the human rights violations happen there how would we address such situation would we use special procedures in that case but also do the special procedures send communications to non-state actors so this is the second round of comments and over back to you Federica and Sagnik please yeah yeah thanks thanks so much I mean very very very good questions yes amicus courier yes special procedures can submit amicus courier and they do they've done it and they've increasingly done it and um there are a few procedural issues to bear in mind that you know the you uh special procedures but they told that are considered UN experts omission as a result they are covered by immunities that by UN immunities so whenever uh if they they decide to intervene in a court cases as amicus uh they uh we need to uh somehow initiate trigger procedures with the office of the legal affairs the UN office of the legal affairs in relation to the uh to the to their immunities no because uh you know depending on the jurisdiction you know if there are all sorts of implication if they may be called to court usually they don't but uh they may be called to court and other things so uh that's a role the these are mainly procedural aspect they need to be figured out a little bit in advance and things like that but they can and and as I said they do obviously what they would do I mean it's much easier that they intervene as amicus brief on the status of international human rights law in that particular case so they would reinstate what international human rights law and standards have said or on on on what is relevant on the applicable law in this particular case they wouldn't really look into the merits of the case mostly uh via via the amicus and and also the other things to to bear in mind it's also the amicus amicus courier uh they are useful to all and usually they are also brought made then they made publicly available once particularly once they uh they are ready and the court uh you know the case is more or less finalized or anyway so they can uh they can be used more widely the only thing is this not really a mandated activity when we say a mandated activity is like there are certain activities that are mandated by the human rights council so they go with the mandate that the council gives to the rapporteurs you know and this mandate usually includes the country visit that the material reports and the complaint procedures so the amicus courier are beyond those mandated activity and as a result there is very limited capacity by certain rapporteurs to do uh to actually work on uh on on this on this amicus so if they when they decide to do so normally they would you know look for partners that can you actually help support you know external part and even to HCHR that can actually help support drafting the amicus brief which is obviously requires quite a thorough legal analysis right so just for you to bear to bear in mind but it's possible they've been used and they have been increasingly uh increasingly used now the second question if there is a domestic proceeding going on would that bear more weight um i'm not so sure i think that is is uh i i wouldn't say so i think it's a strategic decision that the the people on the ground whether it's the victims or the organization or you know the council or whatever they have to uh to to make if it's strategically it could be beneficial strategically to have the domestic proceeding at the same time the the a procedure at the international level as i said from our point of view is possible so it's not that we dismiss our case because there is a domestic proceeding but whether it's strategically um it is strategically you know desirable is something that i think the the persons that are on the ground they have to make because as i said uh you know sometimes special procedures or like other international mechanism are are used as a bit of a last resource or almost a lastly loss resort when you need to escalate uh you know sometimes uh the governments if you send a communication on a case that is going on at the at the at the national level the government you know like they come back and they say sorry we can give you an information because this is currently being uh being uh looked at by the judiciary the judiciary is independent which we may know that is not the case in a particular country that the judiciary is independent but you know like theoretically the judiciary is independent so we cannot give you any information and that you know come back to us eventually when the when the when the proceeding is over so i mean it really depends i think it has to be assessed on a case by case basis as i said there are no limitation from our side but whether it can it can be it can be useful uh for the domestic uh proceeding uh is something that we always we also count on the sources and the submission the the uh you know the the judgment call of the person that submits the information to us and uh on the on the third question yes yes totally we can send the communication can be sent to non-state actors have been sent to non-state actors these include the non-state armed uh groups it includes business i think majority include is businesses um so it so the special procedures can address all these all these actors when it comes to businesses for example clearly the letter is also sent to the government in to the state uh because at least when for example if i take the business example obviously the business is to have responsibilities but the state also keeps it's is the primary duty bearer and so has the primary responsibility human rights to to fulfill the human rights obligation so we would uh write to the to the state where the violations occurred we will write to the business that is maybe involved and to the business we just just don't write to the business in that particular country if the business has an HQ somewhere else we also write to that HQ and sometimes we write also to the go to the to the government of the of the state where there is the HQ for example so it could be when when we have this type of cases sometimes we have a chain of letters that uh that covers absolutely uh everything um on with non-state armed groups i mean we have written to them uh it depends also on the on the how do you say on the on the status of the of the contested territories right for example if it's a contested territory it is spending on the status of how the UN uh deals with that contested territory so sometimes we would write to to a state where the contested territory is in but also to those who have actual effective control of the contested territory in some cases not it depends then it it uh the the we need and then obviously the formulation of what with right is different you know because as i said you know businesses do not really have human rights obligations but they have certainly responsibilities by the UN guiding principle on business and human rights and other things you know similarly with non-state armed groups uh you know they may not have obligation but they may have other type of responsibility so the formulation of the letter may may slightly vary right um but that and then it remains to be figured out i actually do you make these non-state armed groups for example the business if sometimes it's even complicated with the business how do you get this letter to them you know sometimes that it bogs down to that really so sometimes we use because you know usually we have to go through the um the diplomatic representation in Geneva when we send this letter so clearly this uh non-state groups or you know well the business we send them wherever we find uh you know an email address or anything but for the non-state armed groups sometimes it really bogs down how do we get the the letter to them because clearly they don't have diplomatic representation sometimes people working on the ground they are they cannot have official uh communication with the non-state armed groups so i mean but on that we can do it we work a lot with other HR offices on the ground or other UN offices on the ground to figure uh to uh to figure that out now i'm not sure it's happening because any information whether we have ever received any response or any reaction when we were writing to non-state actors i mean business yes business they take when you when they receive one of our communication they are they take it very seriously and they mobilize all their lawyers to send us uh you know very thorough reply and things like that and sometimes they even threatened legal action uh you know so they take it very serious they are very reactive uh etc in relation to non-state armed groups i'm not so sure uh what the the response or rate or if there was a reaction there was not an official reactions i that when i i don't have the disinformation i mean lately we have not sent any such letter to a non-state actor in that sense our armed group in that sense uh and i'm trying to recall quickly but i can't remember if you have received anything from any reply as such any kind of official reply because of we often as Federica said we we delivered those letters through our field presence test through any even field presence is uh on the ground that can deliver the letters usually there is an acknowledgement of such a receipt definitely but uh i have i don't remember having received a kind of response to that to that communication i just saw one question also that do we write also to the event and in fact reporters have written to the secretary general also to the world bank to the IMF to all kinds of even agencies so they are really independent in that sense so whoever may be in their in their uh in their how to say view as a as a as a cause of a violation or is is perpetrating a kind of situation that leads to a violation definitely whether it's an even agency or even the secretary general himself they are they are not they can't escape they will receive a communication yeah thank you so much Federica and Sagnick this has been very very useful uh and all the questions of course uh super relevant i would maybe like to come back uh for a second to peter to give another example on the domestic remedies that that was asked to respond to from that angle over to you peter thanks valerian no thanks for the question on that and just as you were speaking Federica it reminded me of this this other case is to share an example why particularly from uni seris perspective sometimes it's important actually to to launch these communications while there's not going domestic remedy particularly if we have an individual we suspect is facing a risk of deportation or reform all um that's where we sometimes need to get in ahead and and have the communication brought to the attention of special operators or independent experts that that pressure to the situation positive pressure bringing to light the situation of the individual and the potential violation they could face if returned and so for us just to we have a recent example where we've worked with a number of mandate holders who have sent a communication to a government on the case of an asylum seeker where uni seris suspects and based on past practice we we assume that the the asylum claim may be denied even though we feel the individual might be at risk of human rights violations if return so in that case uh i think there was an example where we might want to go ahead even though there's a domestic procedure going on even though it could possibly uh turn out positively for the individual we might want to to bring in this at their angle if we think strategic in the particular case so thanks for for giving me back another minute to put that example forward thanks Valerie thank you so much for Peter for sharing this example and um before we come to the closing we have received one last question that i would like to return to Sagnik and Federica uh which is focusing on um i was just reading because it has been just received um i would like to ask for the mechanism at the disposal of the special reporters and special procedures on the implementation of the communication of the special reporters on individual cases particularly where the states choose not to respond to the communication or response in a manner without addressing the issue so how we can follow up in case there is no no response from the state what are the different mechanisms over to you thank you yes thanks thanks a lot and thanks for the question well yes in a way one way to follow up would be to work together with other mechanism this one we mentioned a little earlier uh you know particularly treaty bodies if it's an individual case i guess a bit less with upr because they they don't really take up those cases but so that is a way to follow up but the other way is the special reporter you know that they dialogue to this exchange of letters continues so obviously the states respond and denies uh the violations or you know because every communication every letter has a set of question and usually they come back with all sorts of things without responding to the questions so you know that's very very common uh so in that case the special reporter can continue on you know can continue the the engagement and the live by a letter saying thank you very much but uh you know these uh these points have not been addressed or i i received i keep receiving information uh that you know the the case is still ongoing and is not getting better and actually is worsening or things like that so and that's why it's important also that the source of the first the the source of the first submission also keeps us informed of follow up information on the particularly if uh because it's useful for us particularly if we need to do the follow up now clearly giving limited resources given the global mandate of the special reporter etc is very uh you know like this follow up cannot be done on a it's not done on a systematic basis right because uh because it's uh you know it's not possible just not possible but if we have the source that keeps sending follow up information and the situation is actually worsening i said you know and there are clear signs i think these are cases that uh you know the special reporter should and have been following up uh you know and you know at most then the special reporter can also decide to to issue a public uh a press release now this we haven't mentioned this because you know it goes a little bit in the communication procedures but you know we have had cases where you know many communication were sent and no replies from the government or replies that were not satisfactory and as a result and despite even communications and the replies being public you know the special reporter decided to to issue a press release uh that's you know is picked up by the media and then create a bit of uh you know uh additional mobilization around the case so these are all tools that are available uh to the special reporters but as you know it's important to count on the continued cooperation of the source sending information tell us how the situation is going on the ground and also you know suggesting additional ways to uh to to do the follow up or you know additional way that the special reporter uh can intervene as you know uh these mechanisms are not they don't have attached enforcement uh enforcement uh uh means so that's a little bit the weakness of the mechanism but there are ways to follow up i'll do as i said given limited resources and global mandate it cannot be done systematically in every single case in case not done systematically in everything single case thank you also also just to add here i mean uh often mandate holders i mean these kinds of cases that keep you know are getting emblematic with no kind of actual response from governments when any other mandate holder by chance if they go on a country visit to that to that country or into that area or to to meet that officials you know through the prominent missions they do raise these issues they do raise these cases i mean if even if it is may not be directly related to them to their mandate they may raise these cases with the highest authorities in the in the land and say that listen this is by the way this is also something that is lying pending from a communication that has not been responded you know that kind of how to say kind of dialogue also happen if even when there is a country visit to that country in fact i mean often for such cases which didn't open for other mandate holders but but had a center visit request or invite to a particular mandate and the mandate visited the country the mandate holder has in the past raised you know the these spending issues with the highest authorities asking for also a kind of response in in in in in those pending cases thank you so much federica and sagnik for responding to all questions actually we have received very rich questions yes well then and of course colleagues on the call we can continue this exchange and dialogue beyond this webinar and we would be happy to facilitate the contact with federica and sagnik or provide assistance guidance as useful and as needed so please take this event of a potential dialogue or engagement where you feel relevant even if you are not sure if a case is strategically you know fit to bring it to the special procedures we can discuss we can we can have a discussion around that and provide more guidance and link up with sagnik and federica so don't hesitate to be in touch and before we close I would also like to say that we are keen to do other thematic webinars on 10th of December as you may know we have a webinar with other OHCHR colleagues how to strengthen collaboration for you and ATR colleagues but we will do other events for the task team and if you have any suggestions of themes that you would be interested in particular targeted topics such as the individual complaints procedures then we would be happy to take it on board so again thank you very much thanks to federica and sagnik and we look forward to being in touch with all of you and on behalf of the task team also aizaya and elisa who are at the background everything is going smoothly thank you very much and wishing you a good afternoon or evening goodbye thank you and thank you to the whole task team for getting these things going is really I think is very is very useful for us too and and hope we can continue the discussion thank you very much have a good day everyone thank you very much thank you I think I fully agree with what federica said thank you all thank you very much and of course we will be sending the materials goodbye bye bye thanks