CYIL 2014

JAN LHOTSKÝ CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ Another important deficit is the backlog of the treaty bodies. Even though the states parties do not report in time or not at all, as described above, the committees are unable to process the work they have in any reasonable time. With regard to considering individual communications, the average time between registration and final decision varies between one and a half and three and a half years. With regard to reviewing state reports, the average time between submission of the report and its examination varies between two and four years. 11 This necessarily affects the quality of such a review, which is often based on a report that is several years old. In addition, the treaty body members are not remunerated experts. They receive daily subsistence allowances during the sessions but do not receive a salary for their work. However, they have to be impartial and independent. Therefore, the fact that they are not remunerated for their work is problematic in this regard. Furthermore, they decide about law but formally do not have to be lawyers. One of the prime problems of the system resides in its chronic underresourcing. From the 1970s the number of treaty bodies grew steadily and so did the number of states parties to each particular treaty. This means that the workload of the committees has grown significantly over the years. However, it was not accompanied by a corresponding provision of financial resources. For example, it would be possible to tackle the backlogs if the treaty bodies held sessions for more weeks annually. But the system is financed by the UN General Assembly (not just by the states parties). On the one hand, there are states in the General Assembly that do not participate in the majority of the treaty body system, while, on the other hand, many states joined the system just because of international and diplomatic pressure, but in reality they are not interested in an effective and functioning treaty body system on a universal level. Last but not least, it is appropriate to mention that the treaty body system is largely unknown. Not only do the media not report about the states reviews, but also the individuals from states parties are not aware of the possibilities to protect their rights on the international level at the treaty bodies. To sum up, the perplexity of the system of nine different treaty bodies, combined with their underresourcing and their lack of authority to issue binding decisions or to enforce the compliance of states parties result in the reality that the system seems to be highly ineffective. 3. Reform Efforts It is necessary to agree with Manfred Nowak, who, pointing at the weaknesses of the mechanism, says that the treaty body system is a child of the Cold War. 12 The control mechanism itself was invented during the 1960s and, although in a much larger size, it has been operating in a more or less similar shape up to today. Due to

11 Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights A/66/860 of June 2012, p. 19-20. 12 Nowak, Manfred. Comments on the UN High Commissioner’s Proposals Aimed at Strengthening the UN Human Rights Treaty Body System ( Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights , vol. 31/1, 2013), p. 3.

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