Reforming the UN Human Rights Treaty Body System – WILPF
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: May 15, 2006
Attachments: WILPF Paper on Treaty Body Reform.pdf
Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom
REFORMING
THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS TREATY BODY SYSTEM:
Focusing on enhancing its monitoring
role
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The UN Treaty Body system achieved important developments for the
promotion and the protection of human rights, providing an avenue for holding
states accountable through reporting and communications procedures. The treaty
body system, however, cannot monitor implementation effectively without the will
of states to comply with their reporting obligations. The Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom has a concern with the effective, careful reform of
the UN at large and with the improvement treaty body system in particular.
Following, are some findings WILPF has identified regarding the principal
weaknesses of the UN human rights Treaty system with particular focus on the
issue of non-reporting and ratification.
It is important to acknowledge the positive role that reporting
procedures have had in bringing national legislation in line with international
human rights standards. Thus, the human rights treaty system must safeguard its
continuation and address the problems and challenges it faces. In a
commentator’s words, after over thirty years of functioning, the system has
developed so rapidly, “that it has problems of which human rights proponents in
earlier eras could only have dreamed. Those problems are certainly considerable,
but they must be viewed against the background of the historical evolution of
the systems.”[1]
Our recommendations today are presented with the hope of strengthening the human
rights treaty system and supporting this evolution process. We also welcome the
efforts of the High Commissioner to enhance the effectiveness of the human
rights treaty system; however, has a reserved view on the proposal to create a
single, unified treaty body.
Problems and
Challenges:
Currently the human rights treaty system faces four main
challenges:
a)
The ‘chronic’ failure of State Parties to
report (or report on time).
b)
The significant backlog of reports to be
considered facing treaty bodies (hereinafter TB), which needs to be addressed in
conjunction with the non-reporting problem; since the system would collapse if
all State Parties complied with their reporting obligations.
c)
The lack of effective and harmonized
follow-up procedures.
d)
The persistent failure of states to ratify
human rights treaties.
[1] P Alston, “Beyond ‘Them’ and
‘Us’ Putting Treaty Body Reform into Perspective,” in The Future of UN Human Rights Treaty
Monitoring, ed. P Alston and J. Crawford (CUP, 2000),
522.
Attached.………………………………………………
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