CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

CYIL 14 (2023) STREAMLINING OR SURVIVAL? OUTCOMES OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS … addition, the chairs requested that the OHCHR cost their conclusions and formulate an action plan for their implementation. 57 In this regard, it should be noted that all committees are independent, and their consensus is not something to be taken for granted. Such a common position should be appreciated. At the end of 2022, the General Assembly was again considering a report on the human rights treaty body system and the hope was that the states would endorse and support the conclusions of the chairs. However, the General Assembly, again in a preambular paragraph, only ‘noted’ the efforts outlined in the report of the chairs. 58 Such language does not have financial implications. Nevertheless, the report also contained some positive language with regard to the use of digital technologies by the treaty bodies. 59 Although the finishing lines of the treaty body review are rather blurred, this ‘colourless’ report 60 shows the result of a six year review extended for two years into 2022. 4.2 Main points of the outcome With respect to the expected changes, there are three areas that should be discussed. First, the chairs of the treaty bodies agreed that the review cycle for state reports will be extended to eight years. This is a major change as until now, the treaty bodies mostly required states to report after four years. The review cycle is therefore expected to double. This idea was formulated already by the Academic Platform 61 and in 2019, the chairs agreed to an 8-year cycle with respect to the two covenant-based committees. At that point, they still supported a 4-year cycle for the specialized committees. 62 However, a year later they were already in favour of an 8-year cycle for full reviews with smaller follow-up reviews in between, for all of the treaty bodies. 63 This is a major change to the previous rule. As most of the states in fact did not respect the 4-year cycle, I would rather expect considering measures that would stimulate them to more responsible cooperation. 64 Nevertheless, the idea in Geneva prevailed that the cycles are de facto already today much longer than the anticipated four years and therefore it is possible to set up a longer and more realistic periodicity. Although it is being seen as progress, I am concerned that without introducing the fixed calendar, it would just lead to loosening the capacities of the system to monitor human rights obligations of states. This is due to the fact that states would still be able to have delays in reporting, but they would just start defaulting much later. Therefore, extending the review cycle should not automatically be seen only as positive. However, the idea is that an 8-year cycle will be introduced together with the predictable calendar. Therefore, an important advantage of this measure is that it would enable the committees to review reports of all states parties within their part-time settings. Second, the outcome of the review did not support the introduction of the comprehensive reporting calendar. Taking into account that the vast majority of states do not cooperate 57 Ibid., paras 55(c), 56. In January 2023, this has not been realized by the OHCHR yet. 58 UNGA Res. A/C.3/77/L.40 (1 November 2022). 59 Ibid., para 6. 60 As it was titled by one treaty body member during an interview conducted by the author. 61 Optimizing the UN treaty body system (n 44) pp. 7, 17–24. 62 Position paper of the Chairs 2019 (n 47) p. 20. 63 Conclusions of the Chairs 2022 (n 56) p. 16. 64 For example, the comprehensive reporting calendar proposed by the High Commissioner Navi Pillay was based on a 5-year cycle. See United Nations reform 2012 (n 8) p. 37.

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