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While the treaty body system continues to grow and develop, coordination and harmonisation of working methods between the treaty bodies remains a challenge. The quality of the work of the treaty bodies also depends on the quality of the individual Committee members, which until now has been uneven, with members often not exhibiting the requisite independence from their governments or sufficient expertise in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to them.
In order to better ensure the implementation of the human rights obligations of States parties, discussions around the reform of the treaty bodies and treaty body system have been ongoing for a number of years, beginning with the Secretary General's calls for modernisation of the system in 2002 ('Agenda for Further Change'). This was formulated most clearly in the recommendations of the former United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights in her concept paper for a single unified treaty body in 2006. While most of the points raised in her report were not accepted by either States parties or Committee members, it nonetheless initiated serious discussions around the need for reform and identified key areas.
A group of current and former members of the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies have issued the Dublin Statement on the Strengthening of the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Body System following a meeting that took place in Dublin, Ireland on 18 and 19 November 2009, in which many of the signatories participated.
Several stakeholders have dveloped responses to the Dublin statement:
- A number of national human rights institutions have presented their views in the Marrakech statement on strengthening the relationship between NHRIs and the Human Rights Treaty Bodies System (9-10 June 2010)
- Several current and former treaty body members have presented their views in the Poznan statement on the reforms of the UN human rights treaty body system (28-29 September 2010)
- Twenty NGOs have presented their joint response to the Dublin statement (November 2010). The response builds on the joint NGO submission to the Inter-Committee Meeting of June 2008, addressing certain key reform issues.
For a more backgound information on treaty body reform, see Chapter V of ISHR Simple Guide to Treaty Bodies.
For more information, see also the OHCHR Website.
ISHR will continue to monitor developments related to all aspects of treaty body reform.
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