• The Administrative Committee on Coordination
enjoy their rights is strengthened by all policies and
programmes, including through gender-sensitive
budgeting;
Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender
Equality should, as planned, conduct a workshop
to clarify the understanding of a rights-based
approach to women's empowerment and advancement and to gender equality, drawing on the work
already being done in this regard by the United
Nations Development Fund for Women and others;
• Support efforts to create an international criminal
court that integrates a gender perspective in its
statute and functioning, enabling a gender-sensitive interpretation and application of the statute;
• The Office of the United Nations High
• Mainstream a gender perspective into all economic
Commissioner for Human Rights and the
Division for the Advancement of Women of the
Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the
United Nations Secretariat should strengthen and
improve coordination in general human rights
activities within their respective mandates and
continue to prepare the joint annual work plan;
and social policies in order to promote the human
rights of women and girls, including their right to
development;
• Adopt measures to ensure by appropriate means
that women enjoy equal opportunities to participate in decision-making processes, including parliamentary and other elected assemblies.
• The Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the Division
for the Advancement of Women should continue to
prepare the joint annual work plan and strengthen
cooperation and coordination in human rights
activities, in particular:
Actions to be taken by States parties to human
rights instruments:
• Promote gender balance in the nomination and
election of independent experts to treaty bodies
having expertise and sensitivity in regard to gender
issues in the field of human rights, giving due consideration to equitable geographical distribution
and different legal systems;
(a) By collaborating in the writing of reports for the
Commission on the Status of Women and the
Commission on Human Rights, the first initiative
of this type being welcomed;
• Take note of the report of the United Nations
Secretariat to the Committee on the Elimination
of Discrimination against Women on reservations
to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women and encourage
similar studies by other treaty bodies, as well as
by the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly,
especially with respect to their effect on women's
and girls' enjoyment of their human rights;
(b) Through sharing information systematically
on the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women, its sessions and
documentation, in order to ensure that its work
will be better integrated into the work of the
other treaty bodies and United Nations human
rights activities;
(c) Through capacity-building to implement agreed
conclusions 1997/2 of the Economic and Social
Council on mainstreaming a gender perspective
into all policies and programmes in the
United Nations system, in particular training
and gender-sensitization especially of human
rights monitors;
• Ensure that their periodic reports to treaty monitoring bodies mainstream a gender perspective.
Within the United Nations system:
• Urge the Commission on Human Rights to ensure
that all human rights mechanisms and procedures
fully incorporate a gender perspective in their work,
within their respective mandates;
• Take further steps to increase cooperation and
promote integration of objectives and goals
among the Commission on the Status of Women,
the Commission on Human Rights and the
3