CCPR Centre
4 June 2020
The 2020 Review of United Nations (UN) treaty bodies (TBs), facilitated by the Permanent Representatives of Switzerland and Morocco to the UN in New York, was formally launched on 2 June.
‘This review represents an opportunity to further reflect on the TB system’s future and develop innovative proposals and solutions without weakening the human rights protection that the system currently affords’ explains Felix Kirchmeier, Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP).
The GHRP has been contributing to this review by providing expert input via different avenues, by facilitating dialogue on the review among various stakeholders, as well as by accompanying the discussions towards the follow-up resolution to 68/268 in New York and in Geneva.
This contribution builds upon the three-year global project of the Academic Platform, which developed models to optimize the reporting and dialogue processes of TBs.
The GHRP has since refined the proposals, adding a calendar system to schedule TB reviews optimally, and identified measures to update the TB communication procedure.
‘We were very pleased to see that in her address to states, Michelle Bachelet recalled that there is no need to reopen the treaties, a premise we followed with our Academic Platform and the recommendations we formulated’ underlines Felix Kirchmeier.
‘The High Commissioner also stressed that many steps to improve the system can be taken by TB themselves: many of our recommendations, including the coordinated scheduling of state reviews before TBs, go in this direction’ he adds.
Geneva Academy
The 2024 Annual Conference of the Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP), held on 5 November at Maison de la Paix, focused on the theme Human Rights System Under Pressure: A Reason to Expand Connectivity.
Geneva Academy
The GHRP’s annual training equipped 19 diplomats with key insights into the UN Human Rights Council’s mechanisms and multilateral processes.
Adobe
This Human Rights Conversation will highlight the significance of academic freedom, explore its legal foundations, and examine the concrete threats it faces.
Adobe
This training course, specifically designed for staff of city and regional governments, will explore the means and mechanisms through which local and regional governments can interact with and integrate the recommendations of international human rights bodies in their concrete work at the local level.
Participants in this training course will be introduced to the major international and regional instruments for the promotion of human rights, as well as international environmental law and its implementation and enforcement mechanisms.
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
UN Photo/Violaine Martin
The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.
Geneva Academy