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Another important deficit is the backlog of the treaty bodies. Even though the

states parties do not report in time or not at all, as described above, the committees

are unable to process the work they have in any reasonable time. With regard to

considering individual communications, the average time between registration and

final decision varies between one and a half and three and a half years. With regard

to reviewing state reports, the average time between submission of the report and its

examination varies between two and four years.

This necessarily affects the quality

of such a review, which is often based on a report that is several years old.

In addition, the treaty body members are not remunerated experts. They receive

daily subsistence allowances during the sessions but do not receive a salary for their

work. However, they have to be impartial and independent. Therefore, the fact that

they are not remunerated for their work is problematic in this regard. Furthermore,

they decide about law but formally do not have to be lawyers.

One of the prime problems of the system resides in its chronic underresourcing.

From the 1970s the number of treaty bodies grew steadily and so did the number of states

parties to each particular treaty. This means that the workload of the committees has

grown significantly over the years. However, it was not accompanied by a corresponding

provision of financial resources. For example, it would be possible to tackle the backlogs

if the treaty bodies held sessions for more weeks annually. But the system is financed by

the UN General Assembly (not just by the states parties). On the one hand, there are

states in the General Assembly that do not participate in the majority of the treaty

body system, while, on the other hand, many states joined the system just because

of international and diplomatic pressure, but in reality they are not interested in an

effective and functioning treaty body system on a universal level.

Last but not least, it is appropriate to mention that the treaty body system is

largely unknown. Not only do the media not report about the states reviews, but

also the individuals from states parties are not aware of the possibilities to protect

their rights on the international level at the treaty bodies. To sum up, the perplexity

of the system of nine different treaty bodies, combined with their underresourcing

and their lack of authority to issue binding decisions or to enforce the compliance of

states parties result in the reality that the system seems to be highly ineffective.

3. Reform Efforts

It is necessary to agree with Manfred Nowak, who, pointing at the weaknesses

of the mechanism, says that the treaty body system is a child of the Cold War.

The

control mechanism itself was invented during the 1960s and, although in a much

larger size, it has been operating in a more or less similar shape up to today. Due to

Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights A/66/860 of June 2012, p. 19-20.

Nowak, Manfred. Comments on the UN High Commissioner’s Proposals Aimed at Strengthening the

UN Human Rights Treaty Body System (

Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights

, vol. 31/1, 2013), p. 3.