PART III – CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION official record of each meeting held by CERD (a three-hour meeting either in the morning or afternoon is counted as one meeting). They are usually redacted and circulated one week after the respective meeting and first released in English or French. The document number of each summary record begins with CERD/C/SR. followed by the number of the meeting (e.g. summary record for CERD’s 1979th meeting is CERD/C/SR.1979).85 They can be obtained through the UN Official Document System Search,86 or found at the CERD website on the respective session page.87 As an option, if a representative or partner attends CERD session, civil society actors can ask that person/organisation to audio record the dialogue between the State concerned and the Committee and share it. An official record of one whole session, consisting of concluding observations and other work or decisions made by the Committee are compiled in the Committee’s annual report that covers the two respective sessions convened in the year concerned. The annual report is usually published in October or November and submitted to the UN General Assembly. 1.3 Follow-up - after the consideration of the State report concerned: The ultimate purpose of the participation of civil society actors in the reporting cycle is not the submission of information or getting quality concluding observations from the Committee, but bringing about actual changes in society. In order to fulfil this purpose, concluding observations and recommendations of the Committee must be effectively followed up. In a similar vein the Committee itself also has its own Follow-up procedure.88 Although the concrete steps to be taken by the State concerned and civil society actors vary from country to country, the major follow-up activities of civil society actors can be summarised as follows. a) Monitoring implementation Civil society actors can monitor how national governments are implementing the concluding observations or recommendations of CERD. Additionally CERD sometimes requests that States submit information before the submission of the next State report under its follow-up procedure (rule 65 of the rules of procedure of CERD) .89 Pursuant to Article 9 of ICERD and rule 65 of CERD’s rules of procedures, the Committee may request the State concerned to submit an additional report or information on specific topics following the consideration of the State report. When the Committee makes this request, it usually indicates in its concluding observations the topics as well as manner and time frame (usually one year) within which the report or information should be provided. Civil society actors can also submit additional information to the Committee when monitoring the efforts of their national government in taking the necessary steps to bring about changes in the country’s law, policy, and practice. At its 64th session (2004) CERD adopted a second paragraph to rule 65, which provides for the appointment of a coordinator, in order to follow up on the concluding observations more effectively. The coordinator (or their alternative) cooperates with the respective country Rapporteur and is mandated to monitor the follow-up by States parties on the observations and recommendations of the Committee. In such cases the Committee holds closed meetings to discuss the findings of the coordinator and adopt formal recommendations or decisions on further action. The coordinator’s findings are then included in CERD’s annual report. 84 Please refer to: http://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/%28httpPages%29/CBD301FF98AF69B980256EE700376D86?OpenDocument 85 th nd For example, summary records for the consideration of Romania at CERD 77 session (2022 meeting on 10 August pm and rd 2023 meeting on 11 August am) consist of CERD/C/SR.2022 and CERD/C/SR.2023 respectively. 86 http://www.un.org/en/documents/ods/ 87 th Summary records for States considered during CERD 77 session can be found in the row of respective states and the column “Timetable” under the date of the meeting at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/cerds77.htm. Please note that it might take longer than one week till summary records are uploaded onto the website. 88 Please refer to PART II 2.1 f) of this guide. 89 Please also refer to PART II 2.1 f) of this guide. 32 ICERD & CERD: A GUIDE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY ACTORS