You can engage with Treaty Bodies in all areas of their work – periodic reviews, individual communications, general comments, inquiries, early warnings and urgent actions, and by following up on Treaty Body actions.
This and the next section focus on:
Inquiries can be a powerful tool of the Treaty Bodies, but they can be demanding from the perspective of human rights defenders. You can submit information to a Treaty Body and request that its members initiate an inquiry into well-founded allegations of ‘serious, grave or systematic’ human rights violations by a State party.
Below you will find questions to help you consider why inquiries might be useful to your advocacy, followed by some examples of how other human rights defenders have done so.
For more information on what they are, see ISHR Academy: Inquiries – What can Treaty Bodies do?
Examples of using inquiries:
In Canada, Aboriginal women and girls experience extremely high levels of violence. In 2011, two civil society organisations submitted information to the CEDAW Committee and requested an inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered Aboriginal women. In response to the information submitted, and in accordance with Article 8 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the CEDAW Committee commenced an inquiry. Cooperation of the State party was sought at all stages of the proceedings. In 2013, two members of the Committee conducted a visit to Canada, with the consent of the State. The CEDAW Committee found that Canada committed a ‘grave violation’ of the rights of Aboriginal women by failing to promptly and thoroughly investigate the high levels of violence they suffer, including disappearances and murders. It made 38 recommendations for action. Canada disagreed with CEDAW’s finding that there had been a grave violation of rights, however, it accepted 34 of the Committee’s recommendations.
The inquiry prompted a national outcry, with all mainstream news media picking on the findings. The inquiry contributed to the initiation of a significant and sustained process in Canada. The federal government established its own Commission of Inquiry, which presented its findings in a 1,200-page report in June 2019. The federal inquiry gathered testimonies from over 2,000 Canadians, and led to the Canadian Prime Minister apologizing for the fate of the victims.
In 2024, in its review of Canada’s tenth periodic report, the CEDAW Committee expressed concern that despite some amendments to the Indian Act, gender-based discrimination against Indigenous women and girls persisted. The recommendations to Canada issued by the Committee include amendments to the Indian Act to ensure women are able to pass Indian status to their children, and to remove any barrier that prevents them from accessing reparations.
Media coverage
On 29 February 2000, the Mayor of Manila issued an executive order governing the provision of sexual and reproductive health rights, services and commodities in the City of Manila. While the order did not expressly prohibit the use of modern contraceptives, its practical implementation severely limited women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services, and effectively resulted in a ban of modern contraceptives in the capital. A confidential inquiry was launched under Article 8 of the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women through a joint request submitted by three NGOs in 2008, with a report issued by the CEDAW Committee in 2015.
While the government of the Philippines did not consent to the full report of the CEDAW Committee being made public, the summary of the inquiry findings published by the Committee stated that the Government of the Republic of Philippines had violated women’s human rights on many counts. This marked an important step forward in ensuring reproductive health rights in the country.
The CEDAW Committee’s summary of inquiry findings was used as a basis in a joint NGO submission: Supplementary Information on the Philippines, as part of the periodic review process of the Philippines by the CEDAW Committee, reviewed during its Pre-Sessional Working Group.
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)’s first inquiry of a State party was launched at the request of a disability rights NGO in 2012, under Article 6 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which the UK has been a signatory since 2007. The initial communication by the NGO, along with reports subsequently submitted by other organisations, alleged that welfare reforms implemented by the UK government, including changes to housing benefit entitlements and eligibility criteria for social care, were carried out without assessing the impact of such reforms on persons with disabilities.
After conducting a country visit in 2015 (which was granted by the UK government), interviewing over 200 people, and collecting more than 3,000 pages of documentary evidence (both public and confidential), the CRPD in its Inquiry report published in 2017, found that the reforms had led to grave and systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities. The UK government rejected all of the Committee’s recommendation, but the inquiry contributed to a wide national debate on the human rights of persons with disabilities.
As a follow up to the UK government’s response to the Committee’s inquiry report and recommendations, CSOs published an alternative report which was submitted to the periodic review of the UK by CRPD in order to highlight the continued need for protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in the UK.
Media coverage
