TY - JOUR
T1 - Inter-State Communications before United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies
T2 - Distinctive Features and Evolving Aims
AU - Garciandia, Rosana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 Koninklijke Brill BV.
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - In 2018, the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) received its first three inter-State communications since the Convention it monitors was adopted in 1965: Palestine v Israel, Qatar v Saudi Arabia and Qatar v United Arab Emirates. These were the first inter-State cases ever initiated before this or any other UN human rights treaty body, activating a mechanism which had laid dormant for decades. In August 2024, the ad hoc conciliation commission for Palestine v Israel published its final report, marking the first time that an interstate communication before a UN treaty body reaches its final phase. The awakening of the mechanism has inspired new lines of research, testing the mechanism in the practice of the CERD Committee and triggering analysis of its procedural features in this and other treaties. What remains underexplored is the connection between those features and the aims that States and other actors envisage for the procedure. This article explores that connection and contends that any revision of the features of the mechanism that its use may bring should be informed by its aims, which are multiple and evolving. The article proceeds in three parts. The first part analyses distinctive features of the mechanism. The second part explores the evolution in the aims of inter-State communications in connection with those features. The third part concludes by reflecting on how those connections could inform forthcoming reforms of the mechanism.
AB - In 2018, the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) received its first three inter-State communications since the Convention it monitors was adopted in 1965: Palestine v Israel, Qatar v Saudi Arabia and Qatar v United Arab Emirates. These were the first inter-State cases ever initiated before this or any other UN human rights treaty body, activating a mechanism which had laid dormant for decades. In August 2024, the ad hoc conciliation commission for Palestine v Israel published its final report, marking the first time that an interstate communication before a UN treaty body reaches its final phase. The awakening of the mechanism has inspired new lines of research, testing the mechanism in the practice of the CERD Committee and triggering analysis of its procedural features in this and other treaties. What remains underexplored is the connection between those features and the aims that States and other actors envisage for the procedure. This article explores that connection and contends that any revision of the features of the mechanism that its use may bring should be informed by its aims, which are multiple and evolving. The article proceeds in three parts. The first part analyses distinctive features of the mechanism. The second part explores the evolution in the aims of inter-State communications in connection with those features. The third part concludes by reflecting on how those connections could inform forthcoming reforms of the mechanism.
KW - aims
KW - features
KW - human rights treaty bodies
KW - Inter-state communications
KW - United Nations
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105001830061&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/15736512-02801002
DO - 10.1163/15736512-02801002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105001830061
SN - 1385-1306
SP - 1
EP - 29
JO - Austrian Review of International and European Law
JF - Austrian Review of International and European Law
ER -
