Introduction
The Human Rights Treaty Bodies entail expert committees with oversight authorities on the implementation of international treaties on human rights. Such mandate seeks to ensure the state parties adhere to the provision set out within the treaty. Although there have been massive concerns on the effectiveness of these bodies, the UN started reviews to understand what happened during the recent times. In this context, the report provides fundamental opportunity to understand the efficacy of these policies and participate in improving them (Joint NGO response to the report of the co-facilitators of the UN General Assembly’s review of the UN human rights treaty body system, 2020). This report is vital because it helps to understand the values of international treaties on human rights and social wellness. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the prospects of budget issues due to COVID-19, communication challenges due to reduced human contacts and pandemic concerns affecting human right defense as well as the general secretary’s rejection of charter requests as major determinant in the currents state of events.
Challenges and Issues Faced as a Result of COVID-19
The emergence of COVID-19 hit every segment of the world economic diverting the attention of all governments into medical and humanitarian service urgencies. One of the major constraints from the pandemic is budgetary constrictions. Since the outbreak of this virus, the United Nations shifted their finances into funding emergency research projects and critical care services to help curb the spread of this disease. As a result, there are limited resources channeled to run the implementation of the committees’ roles around the world (Creamer and Simmons, 2020). Notably, the reports indicate that individual countries have denied the bodies budget to accomplish their mandates in tackling issues. According to Sarkin (2020, p. 7), resource prioritization and independence among these bodies have been a challenge since the onset of the pandemic. Consequently, it is important to understand how the bodies can make new strategies to mobilize more resources for efficiency and sustainable defense of human rights within nations.
Moreover, communications have been shifted to online platform following the guidelines of World Health Organization and international health experts. In essence, the UN human treaties have a comprehensive framework of operation with different departments and organs (Krommendijk, 2020). The 10 treaties bodies, the monitoring authority and the chartering segment must function sequentially to arrive at a unified conclusion. Concurrently, online communication becomes challenging as a result of information communication and technology barriers along the hierarchy. At the same time, the problem of prominent vicious cycle seems to limit the implementation of recommendations communicated under the various reviews (Murray and De Vos, 2020). Thus, the cancellations of meetings, downscaling and postponement of certain sessions, especially States parties’ periodic reports reviews display how the pandemic has affected different operations. The other challenge is General Secretary’s rejection of charters as requested by the bodies. One of the prevailing barriers is the complacency of the hierarchical duties which sometimes delay the execution of certain decisions.
Conclusion and Recommendation
To conclude, reading this report unearths some of the key challenges affecting the implementation of human rights protection as envisioned in the Treaty Bodies of Human Rights. Primarily, this report analyzes the value for structural execution of policies that govern human rights. Arguably, there is a need to provide long-term formulae which can help bodies in individual countries to execute their mandate as prescribed in the UN human rights treaties.
Recommendations
- There is a need to harmonize on the functionality of each body to ensure smooth flow of services and allocation of resources with specified regulatory requirements for member states.
- The secretary general and charter members should allocate more resources to facilitate the activities.
- Every nation should embrace new information communication and technology ideas to enhance better communication systems among the states and relevant organs in the same system.
List of References
Creamer, C.D. and Simmons, B.A., 2020. ‘The proof is in the process: self-reporting under international human rights treaties.’ University of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper (20-05).
Krommendijk, J., 2020. ‘Less is more: proposals for how UN human rights treaty bodies can be more selective’. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 38(1), pp.5-11.
Murray, R. and De Vos, C., 2020. ‘Behind the state: domestic mechanisms and procedures for the implementation of human rights judgments and decisions.’ Journal of Human Rights Practice, 12(1), pp.22-47.
Joint NGO response to the report of the co-facilitators of the UN General Assembly’s review of the UN human rights treaty body system (2020). The ongoing business of strengthening the UN human rights treaty bodies. Web.
Sarkin, J. ‘The 2020 United Nations human rights treaty body review process: prioritizing resources, independence and the domestic state reporting process over rationalizing and streamlining treaty bodies.’ The International Journal of Human Rights, pp.1-27.