Latest developments related to the Treaty Body Capacity Building Programme established by the General Assembly to strengthen the effective functioning of the human rights treaty body system.
Dear UN colleagues,
I would like to inform you of the latest developments in relation to the new Treaty Body Capacity Building Programme established under General Assembly resolution 68/268 "Strengthening and enhancing the effective functioning of the human rights treaty body system" which started in January 2015 and which will become fully operational over the course of the next months.
The Treaty Body Capacity Building Programme was established to “support States parties in building their capacity to implement their treaty obligations”. The new Programme is a pioneer undertaking for OHCHR as 1) for the first time there is a properly resourced one-Office support function on engagement with the treaty bodies; and 2) there is a team operating across OHCHR headquarters and the field: 10 colleagues in 10 OHCHR regional offices. In Geneva, the programme is located in the Section on Capacity Building and Harmonization in the Human Rights Treaties Division.
The programme will aim at transforming reporting from a perceived burden to a concrete benefit for States and ultimately rights holders. OHCHR will organize two regional “train the trainers” events annually, establish a roster of trainers, and provide trainings and advisory services at the national level when requested. We will identify and share good reporting practices, and develop a solid training methodology for each treaty accompanied by tools that can be used across all regions. GA resolution 68/268 (attached for ease of reference) also asks OHCHR to support States interested in setting up standing national reporting and coordination mechanisms, an issue on which OHCHR is in the process of finalising a comprehensive study. Increased, targeted and sustainable capacity building efforts should lead to increased qualitative and quantitative reporting to treaty bodies. Eventually, of course, all this should lead to increased implementation of recommendations by the treaty bodies, and all other human rights mechanisms.
In addition, and to place the above in context, let me recall the key features affecting the work of treaty bodies that were adopted under GA resolution 68/268 and which we are progressively implementing:
1. The General Assembly granted 20 weeks of additional meeting time per year to the treaty bodies to be able to keep up with incoming reports and individual communications and reduce their existing backlog. In 2015, the treaty bodies will meet for some 97 weeks. They will review 180 State party reports (previously around 120 annually) and adopt 170 final decisions on individual communications (previously around 130).
2. The resolution encourages the universal use of the Simplified Reporting Procedure. Instead of submitting periodic reports, treaty bodies do increasingly propose to States parties to opt to receive questions by the treaty bodies (which are based on the concluding observations from the previous review as well as new developments) and their response to those questions will constitute the State party report. Therefore the reporting process is reduced from two steps (State party report and response to the list of issues) to one step.
3. The resolution introduced word limits on State party documents: 31,800 words for initial reports, 21,200 words for subsequent periodic reports and 42,400 words for common core documents. All States parties have been reminded of the new limitations by Note Verbale and such page limits are strictly enforced as in the case of the UPR.
4. The resolution requested the Department of Public Information to report back to the General Assembly on the feasibility of providing, in all of the official languages used in the respective committees, live webcasts and video archives. A feasibility assessment on webcasting is currently being conducted. The resolution also required that video-conferencing be provided to treaty bodies allowing all State party delegations to complement participation during their dialogues with the committees and other actors to cooperate with them. This service should be soon available.
5. The treaty body strengthening resolution further encourages States to adopt processes to ensure the quality of individuals nominated to be experts and encourages States to give due consideration, when electing treaty body experts, to balanced gender representation, equitable geographic distribution, the participation of experts with disabilities (in all treaty bodies), and the representation of different legal systems. There are several treaty body elections coming up in 2015 namely for:
- CED (June 2015 -5 seats:
- CMW (June 2015 -7 seats:
- CERD (June 2015 -9 seats: and
- CAT (October 2015 -5 seats:
The resolution furthermore invites treaty bodies and OHCHR to continue to work to increase coordination and predictability in the reporting process, including through cooperation with States parties, with the aim of achieving a clear and regularized schedule for reporting by States parties. And it also requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly, on a biennial basis, a comprehensive report on the status of the human rights treaty body system and the progress achieved in implementing the resolution. Lastly, the General Assembly decided to again consider the state of the human rights treaty body system no later than six years (note: in 2020) from the date of adoption of the present resolution, to review the effectiveness of the measures taken in order to ensure their sustainability, and, if appropriate, to decide on further action to strengthen and enhance the effective functioning of the human rights treaty body system.
For further information or requests for assistance, please contact the Coordinator of the Programme, Ms. Christina Meinecke at or the Chief of Section on Capacity Building and Harmonization, Mr. Paulo David at .
With my best wishes.
Ibrahim Salama