Treaty Bodies

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What is a Treaty Body?

“A committee of independent experts appointed to monitor the implementation by States parties of the core international human rights treaties.
They are called 'treaty bodies' because each is created in accordance with the provisions of the treaty which it oversees. In many important
respects, they are independent of the United Nations system, although they receive support from the United Nations Secretariat and report of the
General Assembly. Also referred to a the "committee" or "treaty-monitoring body"

What do they do? What are the Treaty Bodies in place?

• consider States parties' reports;
• consider individual complaints;
• conduct country inquiries;
• adopt general comments and organize thematic
discussions to interpret the provisions of their treaty or
treaties;
• attend the annual meeting of Chairpersons; and
• contribute to the treaty body strengthening process.
• Human Rights Committee (HRC)
• Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
• Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
• Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW)
• Committee Against Torture (CAT)
• Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
• Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW)

Zoom in: Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

How do they do what they do? Examples of Action

Gathering Reports inter-state complaints:
All States parties are obliged to submit regular reports to the Committee on
how the rights are being implemented. States must report initially one year In the 50-year history of the Treaty Bodies, only three inter-
after acceding to the Convention and then every two years. The Committee state or state-to-state complaints have been registered
examines each report and addresses its concerns and recommendations to (admissibility accepted on its merits) by the Treaty Bodies,
the State party in the form of “concluding observations”. all of them in 2018 by the Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Procedure
• State of Qatar vs. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
interstate complaints early-warning procedure individual complaints
• State of Qatar vs. United Arab Emirate
Inner-state complaints Early warnings are The CERD may
• State of Palestine vs. State of Israel
allow for a State to used to prevent the consider individual
submit a complaint to a occurrence of an complaints that
early-warning procedure
Treaty Body about imminent or possible allege a violation of
an individual’s rights In its decision 1 (42), CERD had expressed its grave
alleged violations of a violation of the
under the ICERD if concern over the ongoing ethnic conflict taking place in
treaty committed by treaty and are
the State party has the territory of the former Yugoslavia and had requested
another State. Both typically adopted
made the necessary the Government of Croatia, as well as other successor
States must be parties to prior to the
declaration under Governments, to submit by 31 July 1993 additional
the treaty in order to occurrence of a
Article 14 of the information on the implementation of the Convention in
invoke this procedure. human rights
ICERD. its territory.
violation.