Individual communications

The Committee can receive and consider individual communications, also known as complaints, from or on behalf of a person or group of persons claiming to be victims of a violation of the Convention by a State party (set out in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination).

For the Committee to be able to receive individual complaints, the State party concerned must have recognized the Committee’s competence by ratifying the Optional Protocol. You can check this here.

The following resources provide more information on submitting complaints:

Individual complaints form and guidance note

Fact Sheet on Individual Complaint Procedures under the United Nations Human Rights Treaties

General information about the complaints procedures for all treaty bodies

General information about individual complaints

Recent complaints

The Committee publishes a list of all complaints that have been received on an annual basis. This list is not comprehensive.

• Browse complaints made to CERD in the jurisprudence database

How to submit a complaint

Complaints should be submitted using the online submission form.

Learn more: Treaty bodies communications page