Effective implementation of international human rights instruments:
Development of the human rights treaty body system

The promotion and protection of human rights is one of the fundamental aims of the United Nations. The setting of legal standards in the field of human rights and the establishment of mechanisms to monitor those standards has been one the primary means of achieving this aim. Since the establishment of the first treaty body, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the system has grown to include seven treaty bodies.

As the system has grown, it has confronted challenges. These include delays in submission and/or consideration of reports, non-reporting, and duplication of reporting requirements among treaty bodies. Improving the effectiveness of the human rights treaty system has been an ongoing interest of individual treaty bodies, the meeting of chairpersons of human rights treaty bodies, the Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly. These issues have also been the subject of discussion at the Inter-Committee Meeting.

In his 2002 report, Strengthening the United Nations: an agenda for further change, the UN Secretary-General identified further modernization of the treaty system as a key element in the United Nations goal of promoting and protecting human rights. He called on the human rights treaty bodies to consider two measures: first, to craft a more coordinated approach to their activities and standardize their varied reporting requirements; and second, to allow each State to produce a single report summarizing its adherence to the full range of human rights treaties to which it is a party.

Extensive consultations with the treaty bodies, States parties, United Nations entities, non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions, including at a brainstorming meeting of experts, held at Malbun, Liechtenstein, in May 2003, revealed support for the Secretary-General’s concerns and objectives. Although there was broad consensus that a State party was free to produce a single report, it was agreed that it would not necessarily achieve the Secretary-General’s aims and examining it would be an extremely difficult exercise. Emphasis was placed on expanding the content of the ‘core document’ to include information on substantive rights congruent to all or several treaties, as well as other information of general relevance to all committees. This ‘expanded core document’ would be regularly updated and submitted in tandem with a targeted treaty-specific report to the relevant treaty body.

In June 2003, the second Inter-Committee Meeting and fifteenth Meeting of Chairpersons requested the Secretariat to prepare draft harmonized guidelines on reporting to all treaty bodies and guidelines on an expanded core document and targeted reports in time for the third Inter-Committee Meeting scheduled for June 2004.

Documents on development of the human rights treaty system