Statement on the Treaty Body Strengthening Process

The SPT welcomes the vision and objectives of the Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Treaty Body Strengthening and the exemplary consultation process supported by OHCHR. The SPT firmly believes that the Treaty Bodies comprise a unified system of human rights protection and is concerned to ensure that the system as a whole is properly resourced and supported so that each treaty body can properly fulfil its convention mandate.

The SPT welcomes recommendations aiming to ensure a regular and consistent cycle of reporting by states parties to treaties. Any improvements of the reporting procedure of treaty bodies leading to focused and concrete concluding observations will be of benefit to the whole United Nations human rights machinery including the SPT, special procedures mandate holders and the Universal Periodic Review.

The SPT welcomes the recommendations of the High Commissioner’s report aiming at strengthening the independence and expertise of treaty body members and in this regard adopted the Addis Ababa guidelines. It further supports recommendations aiming to strengthen the capacity of States to implement the treaties and to increase the visibility and accessibility of treaty bodies with full respect of confidentiality requirements provided for under relevant treaties and rules of procedures.

The SPT welcomes the High Commissioner’s support for an increased capacity of the SPT. Yet the SPT notes that the level of additional resources proposed in the Report for the SPT is still inadequate to ensure that the SPT is able to visit all state parties sufficiently frequently and believes that it ought to be in a position to do so on a cycle similar to the proposed reporting cycles of other treaty bodies. The SPT hopes that an approach based on equivalence will be developed as this process goes forward. The SPT also notes that support to the work of the SPT in relation to NPMs remains to be addressed.

The SPT looks forward with anticipation to a timely outcome from the Treaty Strengthening Process, and will continue to support the efforts of all stakeholders to bring this about so as to ensure a fully functioning and coherent system of treaty bodies having an impact at the national level for rights-holders and duty-bearers.