Foreign & International Legal Research

Treaty-based bodies:

• Derive their existence from provisions contained in a specific legal instrument
• Hold more narrow mandates: the set of issues codified in the legal instrument
• Address a limited audience: only those countries that have ratified the legal instrument; and
• Base their decision-making on consensus. 

Each of the UN's nine core human rights instruments has an assigned treaty body, which is responsible for implementing the treaty or optional protocol and monitoring the compliance of state parties. The monitoring process resembles that used by the Human Rights Council for its Universal Periodic Review, but does vary slightly among treaty bodies. 

After a State ratifies a treaty, it must submit an initial self-assessment of its compliance to the relevant treaty body. The treaty body then solicits feedback and information from relevant NGOs and civil society organizations before issuing a state party report. This process is then repeated on a regular basis. State party reports (country reports) can be located using the Treaty Body Database. Alternatively, these reports can be found on the monitoring body's website (see links in table below). 

Each of these instruments also contains a mechanism for bringing a complaint of violations of provisions of the human rights treaties before the monitoring bodies. The three main procedures are: individual communications, state-to-state complaints, and inquiries. Individual complaints is the most common mechanism, and is authorized in all nine instruments (but has not entered into force in all nine). 

Use the UN's Treaty Body Jurisprudence database to locate decisions on admissibility and on the merits issued by treaty bodies authorized to consider individual complaints against state parties.