E/CN.4/2006/73 page 4 Introduction 1. This report is submitted pursuant to resolution 2005/47 of the Commission on Human Rights. It is the first annual report submitted to the Commission by Jorge Bustamante since his appointment as Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants by the Chairman of the Commission on 29 July 2005. He succeeds Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro, who had carried out the functions of Special Rapporteur since the establishment of the mandate in 1999. 2. Since the establishment of the mandate by resolution 1999/44, 6 general reports, 3 reports on communications and 10 reports on in situ visits have been submitted to the Commission. Since 2002, four interim reports have also been submitted to the General Assembly. 3. The present report takes into account information received and communications sent in the period from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2005. A summary of the communications is contained in addendum 1. Moreover, the report on the visit to Burkina Faso carried out by the previous Special Rapporteur in February 2005 is also presented to the Commission in addendum 2. 4. The report is divided into three sections. The first section presents the activities undertaken by the Special Rapporteur. In the following section, the Special Rapporteur provides a description of the mandate and the main situations requiring his attention. The last section contains his conclusions and some of his proposed activities. 5. As he did in his report to the General Assembly (A/60/357), the Special Rapporteur would like to express his gratitude for the major contribution made by his predecessor over the last six years. I. ACTIVITIES OF THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR A. Summary of activities 6. On 15 and 16 August 2005, the Special Rapporteur visited Geneva where he met and consulted with staff of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), including staff assisting other mandates, members of the OHCHR Task Force on Migration, and the Secretariat of the Committee on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW). He also met with the Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGO) Group on human trafficking and migrant smuggling, which includes representatives from a number of intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights; the Secretariat of the Global Commission on International Migration; and the Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations Office at Geneva. 7. From 26 to 28 October 2005, the Special Rapporteur visited New York where he presented his report to the Third Committee of the General Assembly and participated in the dialogue with Member States that followed. On 27 October, he participated in the Fourth Coordination Meeting on International Migration organized by the Department for Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat, where he presented his paper entitled “A dialectical understanding of the vulnerability of international migrants”.