2. Treaty Bodies: Going Deeper

The Treaty Body strengthening process refers to an ongoing review by the United Nations of the functioning of the 10 human rights Treaty Bodies.

The review aims to examine the streamlining of reporting procedures, harmonising methods of work, financial matters, and other issues relating to the work of the Treaty Bodies. The chairpersons of all the Treaty Bodies come together at their annual meeting to discuss the coordination of their activities and how to enhance the work of the Treaty Bodies individually and collectively. Informal consultations with States and civil society are also held in parallel.

Background

The growth of the Treaty Bodies over the last 50 years has resulted in significant enhancement of human rights protection, but has also generated major challenges, such as the growing backlog of State reports, individual communications, and urgent actions. This leads also to ongoing difficulties for all stakeholders:

• lack of predictability of state review
• poor state compliance with reporting and implementation obligation
• low visibility of Treaty Bodies and their recommendations (notably at the national level)
• multiplicity and complexity of working procedure
• and limited coordination or complementarity with other UN human rights bodies, especially the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

There have been attempts to tackle these challenges, but a number of issues remain unresolved:

• The 2020 review of Treaty Bodies, which included a governmental co-facilitation process, and concluded in 2020 with a report and recommendations. The main impact was the gradual shift towards the adoption of predictable review cycles across the treaty bodies. At the time of writing, it was still too early to gauge the extent to which the June 2022 pledge of the treaty body chairs will work out in practice. The adoption of a predictable cycle of reviews by the HR Ctte in 2019 has been faced with considerable hurdles, primarily due to the Covid 19 pandemic, and the global restrictions on travel it induced, resulting in considerable delays in the scheduling of periodic reviews. See section 1.5of the ISHR Academy for more details.
• The Treaty Body strengthening process (2009-2014), which led to the adoption of the General Assembly Resolution 68/268.

Previous proposals

• Reports by independent expert Philip Alston (1988-1996)
• UN Secretary-General’s proposal of a single report (2002-2006)
• High Commissioner Arbour’s proposal of a unified standing treaty body (2006)

Where are we at now?

• Gradual shift towards the adoption of predictable cycles of reviews by all treaty bodies (June 2022)
• OHCHR webpage on treaty body strengthening

How can you engage?

• The NGO Network on UN Treaty Bodies (TB-Net) includes seven INGOs, each of which have a dedicated relationship with one Treaty Body. Various joint initiatives are undertaken through this coalition and other NGO networks.
• You can also participate directly at the annual meeting of the Treaty Body chairs – there is usually space in the agenda for interaction with NGOs. Details on the annual meeting of Treaty Body chairs, including agenda and OHCHR contact details are available on the OHCHR webpage.
• Other opportunities for NGO engagement as part of the Treaty Body strengthening process are mentioned on the dedicated OHCHR webpage and in updates in the OHCHR weekly newsletter.

In the next section, you will learn what you can do to push your government to ratify a treaty.