A/HRC/46/34/Add.1 The Parliament, made up of 15 members serving four-year terms, carries out legislative work, which is reviewed by local governments and receives final approval as law by the GovernorGeneral. At the local level, each island has a kaupule (elected island council), operating in line with the Falekaupule Act of 1997 to plan and provide a wide range of local services. 2 Each island also has a high chief and several subchiefs, chosen on the basis of ancestry, exercising informal authority. 8. In 1997, together with other low-lying islands of the Pacific, Tuvalu advocated for a worldwide cut of 20 per cent of 1990 emission levels of greenhouse gases by 2005, a proposal that was rejected by the Government of Australia to protect its own perceived economic interests, a move which caused consternation across the Pacific.3 Following a drought in 1999, during which Tuvalu was dependent on foreign assistance, an agreement was reached in 2001 with New Zealand for an annual emigration quota of Tuvaluans wishing to leave their country because of sea level rise. This started in 2002 and will last for at least 30 years. In 2003, a similar agreement was being discussed for Tuvaluans to emigrate to Niue. 9. Tuvalu has a population of around 11,400 inhabitants, as of 2019. More than half of the population lives in the capital atoll of Funafuti, many having migrated in recent years from the outer islands and maintaining a strong sense of identity with their native islands. The majority of Tuvaluans belong to the Polynesian ethnolinguistic group and are reportedly adherents of the Congregational Christian Church of Tuvalu, a Protestant denomination of Christianity brought to the islands in the 1860s. Only 3 per cent of the population reportedly adhere to another religious tradition; 1.4 per cent are Seventh-day Adventists, 1 per cent are Baha’i and 0.4 per cent are Ahmadiyya Muslims. 10. Most Tuvaluans still practice traditional lifestyles and cultural norms, engaging in gardening and fishing to maintain a certain level of self-sufficiency. The Congregational Christian Church of Tuvalu has a substantial amount of social, cultural and political power and has become closely intertwined with the local culture. The two official languages are Tuvaluan and English. Tuvaluan is closely related to Samoan, another Polynesian language, and has some dialectical differences across the islands that form the country. Samoan and Kiribati are also spoken on the island of Nui. English is taught in schools and used throughout the country, especially for official functions and in business settings. A. National human rights framework 11. Tuvalu is party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (since 1995), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1999) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2013). Each of those instruments guarantees cultural rights. In addition, Tuvalu recognizes its commitments towards all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and participates in the universal periodic review process of the Human Rights Council. In 2016, the Government declared to the Committee on the Rights of the Child its intention to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, which would recognize the Committee’s competence to receive individual complaints. The Special Rapporteur encourages the Government to fulfil this engagement and to consider ratifying the similar protocols to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 12. In order to have a universal approach that guarantees the cultural rights of all Tuvaluans, the Special Rapporteur strongly encourages the Government to also become a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to do so without delay or limiting reservations. The Covenants are core human rights instruments, which cover the range of human rights recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Of particular 2 3 4 Since Tuvalu became a parliamentary democracy, with a Constitution as the supreme law of the country, the traditional power of the Falekaupule is circumscribed by the Constitution and by other elements of the laws of Tuvalu. See http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9709/20/pacific.forum/index.html?eref=sitesearch.