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Geneva Academy
8 October 2018
Felix Kirchmeier, coordinator of the Geneva Human Rights Platform briefed the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on the main proposals developed by the Academic Platform on Treaty Body Review 2020.
Our publication ‘Optimizing the UN Treaty Bodies System’ outlines a series of recommendations related to the functioning of UN treaty bodies (TBs) and provides detailed and innovative solutions for optimizing the system, including the consolidated reporting model and clustered dialogue.
‘Instead of writing separate reports to each TBs, states could do this in one document which they could discuss in clustered dialogues with the various TBs, going to one TB to the next in a door-to-door review’ underlines Felix Kirchmeier.
The discussion with CESCR’s members focused on the new tool developed by the project's IT consultant Noel Pickering, the ‘Treaty Body Scheduler’. This tool allows planning, in the context of a consolidated report and clustered dialogue, the best schedules for TBs sessions.
While the duration of TBs sessions would remain approximately the same, the schedules developed by this tool would allow delegations to reduce their travels to Geneva. This type of organization would also promote greater interactions between Committees’ members as they would be in session simultaneously.
‘It is important for us to show that our recommendations can be implemented and stand up the reality check of an IT-simulation’ stresses Felix Kirchmeier. ‘All our recommendations can be implemented by TBs and states without any change to the existing legal framework’ he adds.
The publication ‘Optimizing the UN Treaty Bodies System’ is the outcome of a three-year consultative process coordinated by the Geneva Academy – the Academic Platform on Treaty Body Review 2020 – to collect academic inputs and ideas for the 2020 review via the creation of an academic network of independent researchers, a call for papers, a series of regional consultations, annual and expert conferences, as well as ongoing interactions with key stakeholders: states, treaty bodies, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and other parts of the UN.
The Academic Platform on Treaty Body Review 2020 forms part of the Geneva Human Rights Platform, which provides a dynamic forum in Geneva for all stakeholders in the field of human rights – experts, practitioners, diplomats and civil society – to discuss and debate topical issues and challenges. Relying on academic research and findings, it enables various actors to become better connected, break down silos and, hence, advance human rights.
News
Geneva Academy
Our recent Academy Briefing, 'The Human Rights Data Revolution', has garnered significant international recognition in recent months with presentations in Indonesia, Paraguay and at the United Nations in New York.
News
APF Library
Via its DHRTTDs Directory, the Geneva Human Rights Platform provides a comprehensive list and description of such key tools and databases. But how to navigate them? Which tool should be used for what, and by whom? This interview helps us understand better the specificities of the current highlight of the directory: APF Library
Event
Follow up discussion to the first day of the public hearing of the International Court of Justice to unpack key arguments and draw lesson from the hearings.
Training
UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré
This executive course, tailored for Geneva-based diplomats and co-organized with the support of the Swiss FDFA, addresses the negotiation practices at the multilateral level, by taking the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council as an example of formal and informal negotiation and decision-making processes by an international intergovernmental body.
Project
Olivier Chamard/Geneva Academy
The GHRP Briefings provide an opportunity for all stakeholders to discuss the results of the United Nations (UN) Treaty Body (TB) 2020 Review and practical ways to implement change.
Project
The Geneva Human Rights Platform contributes to this review process by providing expert input via different avenues, by facilitating dialogue on the review among various stakeholders, as well as by accompanying the development of a follow-up resolution to 68/268 in New York and in Geneva.
Publication
Geneva Academy
