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The United Nations Human Rights Treaties

REPORT: Universality at the Crossroads

Background

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This Report is the product of a study of the United Nations human rights treaty system commenced in 1999 and conducted in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), with the support of the Ford Foundation. The contents and recommendations of the Report are the sole responsibility of its author. The purpose of the Report is to present recommendations for the enhancement of the operations of the human rights treaty system.

During the course of the study, submissions were solicited from a wide range of interested parties: ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with human rights interests; permanent missions of states in New York and Geneva; UN agencies and other bodies and programmes; chairpersons of treaty bodies; the OHCHR treaty body secretariat; national institutions; parliamentary human rights bodies; OHCHR field presences; special rapporteurs; International Law Association members; Academic Council on the UN System; academic experts. A list of responses received is attached. Interviews were subsequently conducted with individual treaty body members, representatives of states parties, UN secretariat officials, UN agency/organ representatives, NGO representatives, special rapporteurs, field mission representatives, and representatives of national institutions.

Meetings were conducted with five of six treaty bodies. In the case of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), meetings were held with individual members including the Chair. Other meetings included participation in the Meeting of Chairpersons of the Treaty Bodies, an NGO consultation during the Commission on Human Rights, and a consultation conducted with individual experts from a wide range of parties: former treaty body members, the UN secretariat, participants in regional human rights bodies, special rapporteurs, UN agencies/organs, working groups, and the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Solicitation of information was also done at the annual meetings of National Institutions and of Field Presences.

In addition, a national impact study was designed to evaluate the effect of the human rights treaties at the national level. Twenty national reports were prepared on the basis of a questionnaire and local interviews. Twenty countries were studied in depth, four from each of the five geographical regions: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, India, Iran, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Romania, Russia, Zambia. The national reports, along with an overview of results, will be published by Professors Christof Heyns and Franz Viljoen through Kluwer Law International.

The contributions of a number of important studies and in-depth examinations of the human rights treaty system over the past decade were the subject of particular attention: Reports of the Independent Expert on Enhancing the Long-term Effectiveness of the United Nations Human Rights Treaty System in 1989, 1993 and 1997, comments invited by the Commission on Human Rights on the 1997 Final Report of the Independent Expert, submissions to the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, and a Report of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Human Rights Law and Practice. In addition, the twelve Reports issued by the Meetings of Chairpersons of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies have considered many of the major issues over a sixteen-year period.