1. The PRC government passed legislation ratifying the Covenant on 28 February 2001 but the ratification document was not deposited with the United Nations until 27 March 2001, which is therefore the date ratification is said to occur

2. The full text of the ICESCR is contained in the Appendix

3. China’s first state report in relation to the ICESCR is due in June 2003

4. Information Office of the State Council, Progress in China’s Human Rights Cause 2000, released on 9 April 2001, there are no page numbers for the White Papers as the documents appear on the People’s Daily website without page numbers, see http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/whitepaper/home.html

5. Tibetan people are a “people” for the purposes of this Article because they are a group with their own history, their own culture, their own language, their own religion, their own ethnic identity and a strong connection to their own territory: for this definition of “people” see UNESCO, International Meeting of Experts on Further Study of the Concept of the Rights of Peoples, Draft Final Report and Recommendations, Doc.SNS-89/CONF.602/7, 22 February 1990. Many international bodies, including various committees of the United Nations and the International Commission of Jurists, have recognised that Tibetan people are a “people”. As a “people” therefore, Tibetans possess the right to self-determination and the right to determine their own political status, whether it be to return to a sovereign state as Tibet was prior to China’s invasion in 1950, or to a genuinely autonomous state within China. The PRC’s refusal to allow genuine autonomy for Tibet including democratic elections; the continued occupation of Tibet by PRC forces; the domination of the PRC over Tibet’s political, economic, social, cultural and religious life; and the deliberate policy of population transfer of non-Tibetans into Tibet are ongoing denials of the Tibetan people’s right to the exercise of self-determination. See Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law, International Commission of Jurists, 1997, p 326 and note 28; Tibet: The Position in International Law, Report of the Conference of International Lawyers on Issues Relating to Self-Determination and Independence for Tibet, 1994, p. 115

6. Information Office of the State Council, Progress in China’s Human Rights Cause 2000, released on 9 April 2001. The last two pages put China’s position emphasizing “that the principle of universality of human rights and basic freedoms should be respected, and the diversity of the world and the principle of seeking common ground while reserving differences must be safeguarded; that each country has the right to choose different ways and modes of promoting and protecting human rights domestically; and that politicising the issue of human rights and attaching human rights conditions to economic aid are themselves violations of human rights, and therefore should be firmly opposed.”

7. Xinhua, 28 February 2001

8. China’s laws recognise only one workers’ organisation - the government-sponsored All China Federation of Trade Unions (AFTU); many instances of trade union organisers being arrested have been documented by organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights In China.

9. “ILO, China Agree on Jobs, Dialogue and Rights at Work”, World of Work: Magazine of the ILO, No 40, August 2001

10. ICERD, Part I, Article 1

11. Lobsang Nyandak, Executive Director TCHRD in colllaboration with International Campaign for Tibet, Worldview International Foundation and International Felowship for Reconcilation "Joint Statement on Agenda Item 9: Victims of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance", World Conference against Racism, Durban South Africa, 4 September 2001.