Treaty Bodies’ Individual Communication Procedures: Providing Redress and Reparation to Victims of Human Rights Violations

Treaty Bodies’ Individual Communication Procedures: Providing Redress and Reparation to Victims of Human Rights Violations addresses the handling of individual communications, tackles efficiency questions related to this procedure and outlines a series of key recommendations to improve the system, including the creation of a registry to provide substantive legal support to UN treaty bodies.

This report examines an essential aspect of the work of UN treaty bodies which, unlike state reporting, has received insufficient attention despite representing an import¬ant mechanism to enforce victims’ rights and ensure that national laws are in line with international standards.

The publication identifies four challenges that currently prevent individual communication procedures from providing relief to victims of human rights violations – accessibility and visibility, stakeholder’s participation, universal use and structural difficulties – and provides specific recommendations to address these challenges.

For each challenge, it discusses the current shortcomings of the system, including for instance the issue of reprisals against those filing complaints; the need to modernize the Petitions and Urgent Action Section of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; or the issue of coordination and harmonization among the various treaty bodies and complaint procedures.

AUTHORS

Portrait of Claire Callejon

Claire Callejon

Associate Research Fellow

Her areas of expertise include international human rights law, the United Nations Human Rights machinery and refugee law.

Picture of Kamelia Kemileva

Kamelia Kemileva

Co-Director, Geneva Cities Hub

Kamelia Kemileva is the Co-Director of the Geneva Cities Hub and a leading human rights expert.

Picture of Felix Kirchmeier

Felix Kirchmeier

Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform

Felix Kirchmeier is the Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform.

NEWS AND EVENTS

Cover Page of the Publication News

New Publication Provides Guidance to Improve the UN Human Rights Individual Complaints Mechanism

27 May 2019

Our new publication addresses the handling of individual communications, tackles efficiency questions related to this procedure and outlines a series of key recommendations to improve the system, including the creation of a registry to provide substantive legal support to United Nations treaty bodies.

Read more >

MORE ON THIS THEMATIC AREA

News

New Publication Proposes a New Take on Human Rights Universality

28 November 2022

Our new Briefing The Universality of Human Rights: Developing Narratives to Overcome Polarization zooms into the main challenges that the idea of universality faces nowadays and seeks to offer some elements to devise a more consequential and effective narrative of human rights universality to overcome these challenges.

Read more

Special Rapporteur name plate at the UN Human Rights Council News

Research Provides Critical Insights to Understand the Impact of Interventions by UN Special Procedures

16 January 2023

Our new working paper Assessment Tool for Special Procedures' Impact Evaluation – Developing an Initial Framework examines how to further develop methodologies to appraise the impact of UN Special Procedures.

Read more

Cover page of the Commentary Event

Taking Stock: Women’s Rights and Gender-Based Discrimination under Scrutiny at the International Level

12 May 2023, 10:00-12:00

This event marks the publication of the second, fully revised and updated, edition of ‘The UN Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol. A Commentary’.

Read more

Portrait of Magistrate Roberto Vidal Event

Taking Stock of Five Years of Work at the Special Jurisdiction for Peace: Challenges and Achievements

31 March 2023, 18:30-20:00

In this discussion co-organized with the Permanent Mission of Colombia to the UN in Geneva, the President of Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace Magistrate Roberto Vidal will discuss the challenges and achievements of this body.

Read more

Garment workersto receive food from their factory during lunch time. This food is freely provided by their factory in order to ensure that workers eat healthy and hygienic food. Training

Business and Human Rights

4-8 September 2023

This training course will focus on the most efficient human rights mechanisms – at national and international levels – to promote and protect human rights in the private sector and address corporations’ human rights abuses.

Read more

Afghanistan, Parwan detention facility. Inside a room where detainees of the prison, separated by an acrylic glass, are allowed to meet with their families a couple of times per year with the help of the ICRC employees who facilitate the programme. Short Course

Preventing and Combating Terrorism

27 April - 8 June 2023

This online short course discusses the extent to which states may limit and/or derogate from their international human rights obligations in order to prevent and counter-terrorism and thus protect persons under their jurisdiction.

Read more

Project

Follow-up Review Pilot Series

Started in November 2021

Read more

First annual conference of the Geneva Human Rights Platform Project

The Annual Conference of the Geneva Human Rights Platform

Started in June 2019

Read more

Cover of the publication Publication

The Emergence of Digital Human Rights Tracking Tools and Databases

published on March 2023

Domenico Zipoli

Read more