Since its creation in 1945, the United Nations began the task of first cataloguing and then codifying human rights in order to move them beyond the realm of morality into that of binding law.

This process resulted in the elaboration of the International Bill of Human Rights, the first component of which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948. In 1966, the General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The two International Covenants translated the principles set forth in the Universal Declaration into specific rights, indicating the measures that States must take to give effect to those rights and establishing the obligation for States that ratify those covenants to report regularly on their efforts to implement them.

A number of other United Nations human rights treaties, aimed at providing increased protection to particularly vulnerable groups or against particularly heinous violations and requiring States parties to report on their efforts, have also been adopted and have come into force upon ratification by the requisite number of States parties: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination adopted in 1965, the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). The most recent such treaty, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, was adopted in 1990 and will enter into force on 1 July 2003.

The implementation of these core human rights treaties is monitored by committees, or "treaty monitoring bodies". The legal basis for the establishment of most treaty bodies can be found in the treaties themselves; in the case of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the monitoring body, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, was established by a subsequent resolution of the Economic and Social Council. Treaty bodies are composed of independent experts of recognized competence in the field of human rights who are elected by States parties.

In addition to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, there are currently five other treaty bodies functioning today: the Human Rights Committee, which monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Committee against Torture; the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Committee on the Rights of the Child; and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women*. All treaty bodies are serviced by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, with the exception of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which is serviced by the Division for the Advancement of Women in New York.

* State parties to the International Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families will meet within the first six months of its entry into force in order to establish its treaty body and to elect its members.