The Development of Human Rights Law and Challenges Faced by UN Treaty Bodies 1969–2022

This article examines some of the major contributions of and the challenges UN treaty bodies have encountered since the creation of the first such institution, the Committee on Racial Discrimination, in 1969. It looks at the roles played by treaty bodies in interpretating and monitoring compliance with UN human rights treaties, including questions about the effectiveness of procedures, inclusive of individual petitions and the remedies they may afford. It questions whether new procedures like inquiry and investigation may prove more beneficial to victims of abuse than the earlier and less-intrusive measures states were willing to accept. The dearth of reliable evidence on implementation and state enforcement of international human rights treaties makes overall conclusions about the value added by treaty bodies more anecdotal or impressionistic than reliable.