CYIL 2014

THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS TREATY BODY SYSTEM… With regard to capacity-building, 4.5 mil. USD will be redistributed to support the states parties in building the capacity to implement their treaty obligations, above all by the provision of technical and expert assistance to assist states in fulfilling their treaty obligations. The resolution also requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly, on a biennial basis, a comprehensive report on the status of the treaty body system and progress achieved. Last but not least, it decides that the state of the treaty body system will be considered no later than six years from the date of adoption of this resolution, to review the effectiveness of the measures taken and, if appropriate, to decide on further action. In other words, for the following six years the system will function based on the outcome of the intergovernmental process. 28 To sum up, a long negotiation process was advantageous for achieving general agreement, but within the negotiations the really functional proposal was taken out. Thus, the supported measures do not contain the leading recommendation by the High Commissioner that would have the real potential to increase cooperation of states and to combat backlogs – the comprehensive reporting calendar. The outcome of the process indeed brought a rationalization, and not only the additional meeting time provided, strengthening of capacity-building and introduction of webcasting and videoconferencing, but also the measures saving resources should be welcomed. Nevertheless, it is appropriate to point out that, according to the Secretary General’s budgetary information, taking both additional costs and savings into account, the resolution’s adoption should lead to a net cost increase of 194,000 USD for the 2014 – 2015 biennium. 29 This represents 97,000 USD annually. Taking into account that the annual costs of the treaty body system are approximately 50 mil. USD, this represents an increase in the budget for the treaty body system that amounts to only 0.2%. It is therefore necessary to conclude that locating the negotiations within the General Assembly brought a result in which the system will more or less only redistribute its current resources without receiving new ones. Conclusions The individual treaty bodies have been created on an ad hoc basis since the 1960s, and at that time they were not supposed to build a system. Today we have nine similar treaty bodies which function more or less independently from each other. At the same time, for already more than twenty years we have been aware of many important deficiencies of the mechanism that are described above, which in reality substantially limit the potential of the treaty bodies to contribute to the real 28 For more information on the outcome, see O’Flaherty, Michael. The UN General Assembly and the Strengthening of the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Body System , available at: http://www.universal rights.org/blogs/67-the-un-general-assembly-and-the-strengthening-the-united-nations-human-rights treaty-body-system. The topic is also discussed by Broecker, Christen. UN General Assembly Concludes its Review of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies , available at: http://www.universal-rights.org/blogs/74-un general-assembly-concludes-its-review-of-the-human-rights-treaty-bodies. 29 Fifth committee considers financial implications of draft resolution on strengthening United Nations human rights treaty body system , available at: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2014/gaab4103.doc.htm.

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