CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

JAN LHOTSKÝ Third, there would be no potential for backlog with respect to state party reports . As part of this proposal is naturally operation of the system within the predictable schedule of reviews, all the stages of the process would be set up well in advance and followed accordingly. Fourth, inefficiencies in dealing with individual communications would be eliminated much earlier due to the introduction of a case management system and streamlining the process of handling communications in general. This is a permanent process and due regard should be given to experience from courts which can provide best practices. A permanent structure of the new Human Rights Committee would help to deal with the communications, as the majority of them are directed towards the current two covenant-based committees. 103 Fifth, as for the backlog of communications , the ITBS would provide additional capacity to deal with the rising volume of communications due to the permanent nature of the Human Rights Committee, as well as due to the enhanced work in chambers. Sixth, the burden of states would be partially lowered as they would provide a single report to the Human Rights Committee covering both civil and political, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. Following that, there would be a single review of the whole human rights spectrum before this committee. Reporting to the other committees according to the simplified reporting procedure would stay in the current form. Seventh, possible overlaps and duplication of work or divergent interpretation would be prevented in two ways. This would be done on the one hand by integrating the two ‘covenant committees’ into one, while on the other hand by introducing a rule that after each session of any specialized committee, a post-session meeting with the permanent Human Rights Committee should follow. This would provide the much-needed space for cooperation and discussions. Eight, the level of independence and expertise of treaty body members would improve by introducing a Panel of Experts that would provide states with assessments of different nominees, which would serve as an objective source of information before elections of new members. Table 3: Anticipated effects of the intended ITBS to the challenges of the treaty body system 104 Growth of the system in relation to its capacity • Human Rights Committee as a permanent body, work in chambers States’ compliance with their reporting obligations is extremely low • fixed calendar Backlog of reports • fixed calendar Backlog of communications • Human Rights Committee as a permanent body, work in chambers Overlaps or duplication • ‘covenant committees’ merged into one, regular post-session meetings with other committees Considerable improvement

Limited improvement

103 See Secretary-General report 2018 (n 14) para. 24, and Secretary-General report 2020 (n 14) para. 16. 104 The respective set of challenges is described in chapter 2.

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