Chapter 2 • The Major Universal Human Rights Instruments and the Mechanisms for Their Implementation 2. The Major United Nations Human Rights Treaties and their Implementation 2.1 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, and its two Protocols, 1966 and 1989 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol recognizing “the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from individuals” were both adopted by the General Assembly in 1966 and entered into force on 23 March 1976. The Covenant established an expert body, the Human Rights Committee, which has authority: (1) to review reports from the States parties; (2) to adopt General Comments on the meaning of the provisions of the Covenant; (3) under certain conditions to deal with inter-State communications; and lastly (4), to receive individual communications under the Optional Protocol.2 On 8 February 2002 there were 148 States parties to the Covenant and 101 States parties to the First Optional Protocol.3 As of 27 July 2001, 47 States had made the declaration under article 41(1) of the Covenant whereby they recognize inter-State communications. This particular article entered into force on 28 March 1979. In 1989, the General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. This Protocol entered into force on 11 July 1991 and as of 8 February 2002 had 46 States parties. 2.1.1 The undertakings of the States parties Under article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, each State party “undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the ... Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”.4 As emphasized by the Human Rights Committee in its General Comment No. 3, the Covenant is not, consequently, “confined to the respect of human rights, but ... States parties have also undertaken to ensure the enjoyment of these rights to all individuals under their jurisdiction”, an undertaking that in principle “relates to all rights set forth in the 2 For more information about the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its reporting procedure, see Fausto Pocar, “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, in Manual on Human Rights Reporting, pp. 131-235. 3 For an update of ratifications see Status of Ratifications of the Principal International Human Rights Treaties at the following UN web site: www.unhchr.ch. 4 It should be noted that, as is indicated by the words “such as”, and as will be further explained in Chapter 13 of this Manual, this list of prohibited grounds of discrimination is not exhaustive. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 31