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THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS TREATY BODY SYSTEM…
until it was possible to finalize consultations and adopt legally binding human rights
treaties on the universal level.
2. The Treaty Body System
After long negotiations in the Commission on Human Rights it was decided that
the content of the Universal Declaration would not be transformed into international
law within one complex treaty, but there would be two different treaties drafted, one
encompassing civil and political rights and the other one containing economic,
social and cultural rights. The main argument for this at that time was that only civil
and political rights are eligible for a review and are directly applicable, because they
protect individuals from unjustified interferences of state organs.
2
Thus in 1966 the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were adopted, both entering into force after
achieving 35 ratifications in 1976.
2.1 Growth of the Treaty Bodies
With the treaties both obtaining over 160 states parties to date,
3
these two
documents constitute the very basis of the international treaty-based human rights
protection on the universal level. However, it is necessary to add that since the 1960s
other very important human rights treaties were also created that focus either on
a particular type of a human rights abuse (racial discrimination, torture etc.) or
protection of particular potentially vulnerable groups (women, children etc.).
Each of these treaties creates a control mechanism, in particular a committee
of human rights experts,
4
whose function is to review the human rights situation
in states parties in relation to the content of the particular human rights treaty. For
example, the Convention on the Rights of the Child creates the Committee on the
Rights of the Child, or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
creates a Human Rights Committee which, with regard to the method of naming the
other bodies, is actually a ‘Committee on Civil and Political Rights’.
As the committees usually only hold sessions for several weeks a few times in
a year, they are not full-time bodies. Although at the time of their creation these
committees (usually called ‘treaty bodies’) were not supposed to function as a system,
over the years nine similar treaty bodies from a functional point of view were created,
each dealing with a particular area of human rights protection.
5
2
Šturma, Pavel.
Mezinárodní a evropské kontrolní mechanismy v oblasti lidských práv
[International and
European Control Mechanisms in the Field of Human Rights] (3rd edition, C.H. Beck, Praha, 2010),
p. 6-7.
3
In particular, in May 2014 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights had 168 states
parties and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 162 states parties.
4
From the formal point of view the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is
an exception, because it entrusts the mentioned role to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC),
which later established a Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for this purpose.
5
It is often mentioned that there are ten treaty bodies. That is because it is possible to count the