Opening address by Ms. Kyung-wha Kang United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Information seminar organized by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Amnesty International

9 November 2011

Distinguished participants,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am honoured and pleased to participate in this seminar on strengthening the human rights treaty body system.  Many thanks to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Amnesty International for organizing it and for inviting me to be a part of this important event.

As you know two years ago, at the UN General Assembly the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called upon all stakeholders to embark upon a process of reflection on ways to strengthen the treaty body system, in a bottom-up, inclusive and transparent approach. This process started here in Dublin, in November 2009, and was followed by a series of meetings that took place in Marrakesh, Poznan, Seoul, Pretoria, Bristol and Luzern and were organized respectively by different interested partners. Each consultation brought together a targeted group of stakeholders, such as national human rights institutions, treaty body experts, civil society actors and academics.

Furthermore, our Office, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, organized a consultation with Member States in May 2011 in Sion, Switzerland, as well as a meeting on the issue of individual complaints with relevant treaty body members last month in Geneva.

This broad consultative process, reflecting the importance that the High Commissioner attaches to the views of all stakeholders involved in the treaty body system, will now culminate in the wrap-up meeting taking place here in Dublin over the next two days. The Dublin II event on treaty body strengthening aims at fine tuning the proposals that have energized from the process so far and at identifying gaps which have not yet been addressed. These proposals will then be compiled by the High Commissioner in a report which is expected to be released during the summer of 2012.

On behalf of the High Commissioner, I would like to thank civil society actors for their participation in and contributions to this process. As you know, two statements putting forward extremely valuable proposals by civil society were adopted in Seoul and Pretoria, and numerous written contributions were also received by the Office, including on the individual complaints procedure. Among the key proposals put forward by civil society are: the need for treaty bodies to align their reporting procedures and harmonize their interactions with civil society, the importance of focused, targeted and implementable treaty body outputs; and a stronger role of the treaty bodies in the follow-up process to their concluding observations.

Distinguished participants,

Since the first treaty body, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was established over forty years ago, the work and cooperation of civil society with the treaty body system has increased remarkably, both in quality and quantity. Today, the nine functioning treaty bodies receive over one thousand written submissions per year. Hundreds of meetings and briefings between treaty bodies and NGOs are also organized yearly. The vital importance of this cooperation is recognized by all treaty bodies, who acknowledge that the discharge of their mandates would be made very difficult without the cooperation of a robust, credible and independent civil society.

Dear Participants,

There is no denying that treaty bodies’ own success over the past four decades is now straining the system.  At the heart of the matter lies the growing and by now untenable gap between the Member States support for and approval of the expansion of the system on the one hand and the financial resources they have been willing to give to the functioning of system on the other.  Simply put, the resources the system have not kept pace with its growth in size, output, and visibility.

With the establishment of another new treaty body this year, the 10th, (on enforced disappearances) the system is fast approaching its limits, especially in terms of coherence and resourcing. The treaty body framework has doubled in size in less than one decade and today the nine core international human rights treaties have received more than 1565 ratifications. This means that a State that has ratified all treaties will have to report twenty times every decade; two reports per year…. This is the challenge we are, the Member States, the treaty bodie’s reviewing the reports and our Office that provides the support structure are facing!  But the challenge is more than just a matter of resources.

The ongoing expansion of the treaty body system and the multiplication of procedures – often not harmonized among various bodies – has certainly allowed for more specificity.  However, the growth in this form of a sprawl has made the system increasingly unwieldy, cumbersome and unpredictable.  As a result, the risk of diminishing returns of reduced impact of the treaty bodies for the rights holders has become very real.

It is in response to this challenging situation that the High Commissioner has launched the process of reflection, and many civil society actors have responded to the call. We hope that the efforts of the multiple stakeholders involved in this process will result in tangible and innovative recommendations for a more robust and sustainable treaty body system. We hope to see the emerging of a shared vision that captures the lessons from the past, addresses present challenges and prepares for the future of the treaty body system I am sure this is a goal we all share and I hope your discussions this evening will help to further enrich the process of strengthening the treaty bodies, which represents a key indispensable pillar of the global human rights system.

Thank you

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