1. A State Party to this Convention may at any time declare under this article that it recognizes
the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of
individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by a State Party of
the provisions of the Convention. No communication shall be received by the Committee if it
concerns a State Party which has not made such a declaration.
2. The Committee shall consider inadmissible any communication under this article which is
anonymous or which it considers to be an abuse of the right of submission of such
communications or to be incompatible with the provisions of this Convention.
3. Subject to the provisions of paragraph 2, the Committee shall bring any communications
submitted to it under this article to the attention of the State Party to this Convention which has
made a declaration under paragraph I and is alleged to be violating any provisions of the
Convention. Within six months, the receiving State shall submit to the Committee written
explanations or statements clarifying the matter and the remedy, if any, that may have been taken
by that State.
4. The Committee shall consider communications received under this article in the light of all
information made available to it by or on behalf of the individual and by the State Party
concerned. 5. The Committee shall not consider any communications from an individual under
this article unless it has ascertained that:
(a) The same matter has not been, and is not being, examined under another procedure of
international investigation or settlement;
(b) The individual has exhausted all available domestic remedies; this shall not be the rule where
the application of the remedies is unreasonably prolonged or is unlikely to bring effective reliefto
the person who is the victim of the violation of this Convention.
6. The Committee shall hold closed meetings when examining communications under this
article.
7. The Committee shall forward its views to the State Party concerned and to the individual.
8. The provisions of this article shall come into force when five States Parties to this Convention
have made declarations under paragraph 1 of this article. Such declarations shall be deposited by
the States Parties with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who shall transmit copies
thereof to the other States Parties. A declaration may be withdrawn at any time by notification to
the Secretary-General. Such a withdrawal shall not prejudice the consideration of any matter
which is the subject of a communication already transmitted under this article; no further
communication by or on behalf of an individual shall be received under this article after the
notification of withdrawal of the declaration has been received by the SecretaryGeneral, unless
the State Party has made a new declaration.
Article 23