A/71/398 fragmentation of policies and legislation at the United Nations level should be avoided and that a new instrument and its new monitoring body would certainly increase the burden on States parties and reinforce the trend of fragmentation. The creation of a new convention is contradictive from the viewpoint of States parties that have urged the Committee to streamline its activities. On a positive note, the mainstreaming of gender into the United Nations human rights mechanisms, especially in other treaty bodies, is noted. Many of the treaty bodies now have general comments relating to gender, which refer to gender -based violence against women, such as general comment No. 28 (2000) on the equality of rights between men and women (article 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) of the Human Rights Committee. By looking comprehensively into the collective jurisprudence, it can be concluded that the United Nations human rights mechanism has been well equipped with the necessary instruments. Attention is also drawn to the current economic atmosphere, which has a negative impact in many parts of the world. Given that many States parties are grappling with cuts to social programmes, including those for combating violence against women, the Committee is of the view that it is not an appropriate time to propose a new convention. 16. On measures to accelerate the prevention and elimination of gender -based violence against women, the Committee indicates that it will provide a comprehensive answer in its new updated version of general recommendation No. 19, the first draft of which will be made public shortly. The Committee will emphasize the importance of collecting data on and monitoring the situation of violence against women, adopting laws and policies that reflect developments with regard to violence against women by increasing women’s participation in decision making bodies and reinforcing women’s access to justice for substantive redress. Such measures should be country–specific. The Committee addresses these issues in its engagement with States parties through its lists of issues, constructive dialogue and its recommendations on gender-based violence against women in every set of concluding observations. B. Committee of experts on the follow-up mechanism to the implementation of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights 17. The committee of experts on the follow-up mechanism to the implementation of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women considers that the adoption, in 1979, of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women reflected a new international model of respect for women’s human rights, with its own monitoring mechanism, and that the creation of a protocol should be supported, as a supplementary instrument to the Convention because it would strengthen t he work already done by the members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and promote the Inter-American Convention and the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) without weakening the implementation of those treaties. Furthermore, it would not contravene the provisions of other regional conventions on the same issue. The committee of experts indicates that, in 2014, Italy signed the Inter-American Convention before the entry into force of the 6/24 16-16456