International human rights reporting International human rights reporting activities have increased over the 2022/23 financial year. These have included the following: • In August 2022, the Commission attended New Zealand’s second and third period review by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, having provided a joint submission to the Committee in June 2022 in its capacity as a member of the Independent Monitoring Mechanism on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, alongside the Office of the Ombudsmen and Convention Coalition of Disabled People’s Organisations (IMM). The CRPD Committee issued its report on New Zealand in September 2022, setting out its recommendations for the New Zealand Government to further its implementation and compliance with the Convention. These recommendations covered a wide range of areas. Key thematic recommendations included strengthening the implementation of the Government’s national disability strategy across the public sector, adoption and implementation of an accessibility strategy underpinned by universal design and to amend the Human Rights Act to expressly include and define the central CRPD principle of reasonable accommodation. • The Commission issued its supplementary submission to the Committee on 15 August 2022 regarding the 6th periodic review of New Zealand under the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Following that, the Commission hosted civil society organisations at an on-line pre-session meeting with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on 26 September 2022. The full review by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child took place on 25-26 January 2023, which the Commission attended. The CRC Committee issued its report on New Zealand on 6 February 2023. Key high-level recommendations included the development of a comprehensive strategy 28 Pūrongo ā-tau Annual Report 2023 for prevention and combating violence and abuse against children with special attention to Māori, Pacific, rainbow and disabled children; specific government budgetary lines for children, with special attention to Māori and Pacific children, children in state care and children with disabilities; and for the government to make the child rights impact assessments compulsory in the development of policy and legislation affecting children. • On 12 June 2023, the Commission issued submissions to the UN Committee Against Torture regarding New Zealand’s sixth periodic review under the Convention Against Torture. The Commission also coordinated the submission to the UNCAT of New Zealand’s National Preventative Mechanisms (NPMs), of which the Commission is the Central NPM. NPMs monitor places of detention under the Optional the first under the CAT since 2015. The Commission highlighted several issues in its submission to the Committee, including the need to improve measures to support women in prison, amend the Corrections Act and regulations to fully comply with international human rights standards, the need for recognition, respect and support for Māori rangatiratanga to develop initiatives in the criminal justice and state care systems, introduction of legislation prohibiting modern slavery, and full implementation of the redress system recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. • The Commission also provided a submission to the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) regarding the SPTs development of a general comment on Article 4 of the Optional Protocol on the Convention Against Torture. Article 4 concerns the duty upon States parties to allow NPMs to visit places of detention as part of their monitoring fnctions.