On Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) announced the establishment of the Presidential Office Human Rights Consultative Committee and said that according to two UN covenants signed last year — the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights — all signatory nations are required to establish a human rights commission.
He also said that to ensure the two covenants were smoothly implemented, the government would set up the human rights consultative committee in the Presidential Office, instead of attaching it to the Cabinet, the Judicial Yuan or the Control Yuan.