The Pros And Cons Of The UN Treaty Bodies

The United Nations (UN) is defined as an intergovernmental organization commissioned to encourage international cooperation and to generate and continue international order. Individuals from within the UN member States can bring complaints of human right breaches to the relevant UN Treaty Body. A Human Rights Treaty is an international agreement, which instils irrevocable obligations to protect and promote rights and freedoms on States that officially accept it, commonly through “ratification” or “accession”. The treaties are missioned with monitoring implementation in States parties of the rights set out within the treaties and with deciding on complaints brought against those States.
While there are a few procedural variations between the nine mechanisms, their design and operation are very similar. If an individual in a member State has exhausted all other …show more content…
Nevertheless, the rise in the creation and use of individual complaint mechanisms as a part of international Human Rights Treaties has created a significant challenge to the maintenance of this gap. The main benefits associated with the UN Treaty Bodies are: the States often follow what the UN directs, language barriers is not an issue as the UN has interpreters to translate for them and third parties can make complaints to the State on behalf of an individual. Conversely, the shortcomings of the UN Treaty Bodies are that States may disregard the decisions made by the UN and some States may decide not to ratify the Treaty Bodies. The UN hears a large number of individual complaints against States. However, it may take significant time for the UN Treaty Bodies to address these complaints. There is an ever-increasing backlog of complaints, as a result of the UN being under-resourced and relying on funding from member