¹ China has ratified neither the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights nor the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, for example, although it is a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Syria is now thirteen years overdue on its initial report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

² For example, Cuba attempted in 1996 and 1997 to eviscerate the mandate of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention by excluding from its purview imprisonment so long as it resulted from a trial, however unjust or unwarranted that trial might be. The establishment of a country-specific special rapporteur, one of the most powerful UN human rights mechanisms, is an enormous political struggle, and these mandates come up for renewal yearly, as opposed to the usual three-year renewal for thematic special procedures. I have not discussed field offices established by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Centre, which obviously present the best conditions for focused resources, NGO access and on-site intervention, for several reasons. One is that they are very new experiments, whose effectiveness is still being tested; another is that they have been established and maintained only in the most extraordinary circumstances, where there is a vacuum of sovereignty or a government that is struggling to establish its legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

³ The jurisprudence of general comments created by the treaty bodies is also a significant achievement, but so far secondary in impact to the reporting process and less open to NGO input. It is nevertheless critical to NGO engagement in monitoring of compliance; the accumulating decisions and comments of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, for example, have begun a legal framework for NGOs that are just broaching examination of these rights.

⁴ There have also been calls for committee members to be salaried and exclusively employed by the United Nations. While this would certainly ensure that the greatest part of their time would be dedicated to the treaty body, it might also exclude the participation of prominent human rights experts who would not wish to permanently abandon their positions in universities or institutes. To promote the independence of treaty bodies and to prevent conflicts of interest, members should not be elected who are holding concurrent diplomatic or governmental positions.

⁵ Although NGOs provide extremely valuable information, they should not be the only alternative to information provided by governments; enhancing the fact-finding ability of treaty bodies, as discussed below, is essential to bolstering their independence and prestige and avoiding state suspicion that they merely repeat NGO complaints uncritically.

⁶ This is one reason, perhaps, for the comparative lack of investment by NGOs in treaty body complaint mechanisms; they require an enormous effort in terms of case preparation, and produce their nonbinding results only after years of invisible consideration.

⁷ The misrepresentation was that Sergei Kovalev had certified no political prisoners when he in fact had concluded that Georgia held at least seventeen. The deputy procurator-general, Anzor Baluashvili, was known to have beaten criminal suspects; this included kicking the wounds of a man who had undergone chest surgery days earlier. See Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, Georgiem Delegate Dissembles before U.N. Human Rights Committee, Apr. 9, 1997.

⁸ See Michael O’Flaherty, Human Rights and the Un: Practice Before Treaty Bodies passim (1996). The abuses stemming from the conflict in former Yugoslavia, for example, have been the subject of special review by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Human Rights Committee, and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Id at 45, 103, 137.

⁹ Preliminary Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee: Nigeria, Human Rights Committee, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add.64 (Apr. 3, 1996).

¹⁰ Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee: Nigeria, Human Rights Committee, para. 12, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add.65 (July 24, 1996).

¹¹ The Committee had concluded that China was bound to do so, despite the fact it is not a party to the Covenant, for two reasons: first, China’s agreement in a bilateral treaty with the United Kingdom that the Covenant “as applied to Hong Kong” would remain in force; second, the Committee had decided that human rights treaties, once assumed with respect to the population of any given territory, devolve with the territory, so that changes in sovereignty do not affect the obligations thereunder. Statement by the Chairperson on Behalf of the Human Rights Committee Relating to the Consideration of the Part of the Fourth Periodic Report of the United Kingdom Relating to Hong Kong, Human Rights Committee, 1453rd mtg, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add.S7 (1995), available at <;http://www.lawhk.hku.hk/demo/unhrdocs/hrcstate.htm>.

¹² Id.

¹³ O’Flaherty, supra note 8, at 196-97.

¹⁴ The government of Hong Kong also played an important part, submitting its reports in a timely fashion and making them public, and hosting two members of the Human Rights Committee.

¹⁵ See Alston, Philip, The Economic Rights Committee, in The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal, 505-06 (Alston, Philip ed., 1992)Google Scholar. At its fifth session, the Committee adopted the rule that where an overdue report is scheduled for consideration for the third time, the Committee will proceed whether or not a representative of the state party is able to be present.

¹⁶ Advisory Committee on Human Rights and Foreign Policy, Advisory Report 22: UN Supervision of Human Rights 7 (1996).

¹⁷ See id. at 11, 27 (information on both committee backlogs and state delinquencies).

¹⁸ The six are the Human Rights Committee, the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee against Torture, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The seventh potential treaty body is that for the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, following its entry into force.

¹⁹ See, e.g., Andrew Byrnes, The Committee against Torture, in The United Nations and Human Rights, Supra note 15, at 519-20.

²⁰ See G.A. Res. 50/170, Effective Implementation of International Instruments on Human Rights, Including Reporting Obligations under International Instruments on Human Rights, para. 12, U.N. Doc. A/Res/50/l 70, (Feb. 26, 1996) (inviting “states parties that have been unable to comply with the requirements to submit their initial report to avail themselves of technical assistance”).