Reforming the UN human rights system: defenders’ voices matter!

Increased political and financial investment in human rights is essential to peace, security and sustainable development at the national, regional and international levels.

♦ Member States should increase their investment in human rights and, in particular, the UN human rights pillar, including as an aspect of their legal obligations under Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

♦ The UN’s human rights pillar is already chronically underfunded, accounting for approximately 5% of the UN regular budget and less than 1% of UN’s total expenditure (regular budget and voluntary contributions). While there may be opportunities for greater efficiency and effectiveness in the use of existing resources, the budget for the UN human rights pillar should therefore be safeguarded from any overall UN budget and spending cuts. Any cuts to the human rights pillar would result in minimal savings but have significant and disproportionate adverse consequences for the rights of people around the world, particularly communities and groups subject to various and intersecting forms of discrimination. Conversely, any increase in funding to the human rights pillar could contribute to efficiency by increasing economies of scale; adequate funding for the human rights pillar is highly cost effective in the longer term. Promoting human rights safeguards international peace and security and has a vital preventive function, alleviating or averting severe humanitarian crises.

♦ States must be held accountable for failing to pay UN dues in full and on time, both now and in future years. States that repeatedly fail to pay their UN dues should have their right to vote in any UN body or process – including the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Human Rights Council – suspended until such time as arrears and dues are paid. The provision for default of UN dues set out in article 19 of the UN Charter should be supplemented as needed by additional measures through the UNGA to incentive states to remain in good standing. 

OHCHR has a critical role to play in coordinating the promotion and protection of human rights across the UN system, thereby contributing to effectiveness and efficiency. Any reduced funding for OHCHR is likely to reduce coordination, complementarity and efficiency across the UN system. 

♦ OHCHR should be provided with the resources necessary to fully discharge its independent mandate, conferred by General Assembly resolution 48/141. In addition to coordination, OHCHR’s mandate includes prevention and accountability for human rights violations. Prevention avoids the significant human and financial costs associated with human rights violations, while accountability is necessary to provide justice to victims and deter future violations and their attendant costs. 

♦ In order to contribute to effective and efficient prevention, the High Commissioner should provide regular intersessional briefings to the Human Rights Council on situations that merit the HRC’s attention. Consistently with the HRC’s resolution on the prevention of human rights violations, OHCHR should also ensure a UN system-wide response to early warning signals from national and global civil society, national human rights institutions and UN country offices.

♦ Consistently with its mandate to support and strengthen the effectiveness of the UN human rights machinery, OHCHR should promote and protect the independence, diversity and responsiveness of the Special Procedures, as well as the independence of the investigative mechanisms established by the Human Rights Council. Any standardisation of methods of work, including through changes in personnel and staffing, must be guided by stakeholder inputs.

♦ While OHCHR should explore opportunities to expand field offices and regional presences, and support the mainstreaming of human rights cross-country offices, OHCHR should maintain its primary offices and functions in Geneva. This will leverage economies of scale, contribute to coordination and collaboration with other agencies, assist to guard against fragmentation and duplication, and assist to ensure safe, efficient and effective access for independent civil society. Any location considered by OHCHR for any presence or mechanism should be subject to a civil society impact assessment, identifying any challenges or barriers to safe and effective civil society access and participation. 

♦ OHCHR should identify opportunities to streamline and negotiate more favourable commercial terms for expenditures on travel, accommodation and events.

The Human Rights Council is the UN’s peak multilateral human rights body, with a mandate to promote and protect human rights, and prevent and ensure accountability for violations. Its independent mechanisms – including Special Procedures and investigative bodies such as commissions of inquiry – provide access to substantial human rights capacity and expertise, all provided on a voluntary basis.

♦ The General Assembly’s review of the status of the HRC should aim to strengthen the HRC’s mandate, effectiveness and efficiency, as well as elevate the status of human rights across the UN system.  

♦ Among other steps, pursuant to article 96(2) of the UN Charter, the General Assembly should authorise the HRC to request advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice on legal questions arising with respect to human rights. This would assist to ensure the principled and consistent development, interpretation and application of international human rights law. It would also contribute to efficiency by increasing the comity of law and providing authoritative guidance on legal matters which may otherwise be subject to different approaches by different mandates and mechanisms.

♦ The HRC’s Special Procedures are independent experts who provide extensive guidance and advice on human rights issues on a fully pro bono basis. In order to maximise efficiencies and fully leverage this pro bono capacity and expertise, it is imperative that the independence of the Special Procedures is respected and protected and that they are provided with the resources necessary to fully discharge their mandates. It is similarly essential to preserve the independence of investigative mechanisms, free from political considerations and interference that may impede their efficiency and effectiveness.

♦ Selectivity and double standards significantly erode the integrity of international human rights law and the effectiveness and efficiency of mechanisms mandated to promote and protect human rights. In order to address this, the HRC should mandate an independent, cross-regional working group of experts empowered to refer urgent situations to the HRC, including by applying the objective criteria set out in the “Irish Principles”. This would ensure that the HRC could be seized of matters on their merits and focus its limited resources on critical situations.

♦ While the duplication of mandates should be avoided, the complementarity of mandates should be encouraged where such mandates can fulfil distinctive functions in relation to a particular theme or situation. Thus, for example, a particular situation may warrant both a commission of inquiry to collect and preserve evidence of atrocity crimes while a Special Procedure is also mandated to engage in dialogue and cooperation with a government or authority. Any merger or consolidation of mandates should only be undertaken following an assessment as to the implications for operational independence and effectiveness, as well as the views of independent civil society and victims and survivors of violations.  

♦ The Universal Periodic Review must maintain its strengths of universality and stakeholder engagement, while being recognised as just one tool in the Council’s toolbox which cannot be used as a substitute for other Council mandates or mechanisms. 

♦ The Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee and the Complaints Procedures could be reviewed for their relevance and effectiveness.

The UN human rights treaty bodies, composed of independent human rights experts serving in a non-remunerated and independent capacity, monitor and provide legal interpretation to States on the implementation of their obligations under the core human rights treaties. The work of treaty bodies contributes to prevent violations, promote accountability, and support effective and efficient implementation.

♦ UN human rights treaty bodies should be provided with the resources necessary to fully discharge their mandates. The lack of resources currently provided means that the expertise of members is not fully or efficiently leveraged.

♦ Additional resources are also necessary to ensure that the treaty bodies can operate and review States on a predictable calendar, which would substantially enhance efficiencies for both States and civil society. Treaty bodies should also be provided with additional resources to address a large and inefficient backlog in the determination of individual communications.

♦ Where it is safe and efficient to do so, treaty bodies should consider conducting clusters of State party reviews in the regions, thereby contributing to accessibility and efficiency for States in the region, as well as national and regional-level civil society.

♦ Treaty bodies should ensure, and be provided with the resources to maintain, modalities for online participation. This is necessary to ensure accessibility as well as to avoid the significant financial and environmental costs associated with unnecessary travel.

The promotion, protection and implementation of human rights, as well as investigations into and the prevention of violations, is essential to the efficient and effective promotion and maintenance of peace and security.

♦ The Human Rights Council should be mandated to seize the UN Security Council of human rights matters that may impact on international peace and security, thereby contributing to greater prevention, as well as enhanced coordination and efficiency between mechanisms.

♦ For the same reasons, the Secretary-General should use their mandate under article 99 of the UN Charter to refer to the Security Council any widespread and systematic human rights violations, or early warning signs thereof, that may impact on international peace and security. 

♦ All States should oppose and refrain from the use of the veto in the Security Council in situations involving atrocity crimes. This is essential to enable the Security Council to act in such situations and to minimise the enormous human and financial costs associated with such crimes.

Safe and effective civil society access and participation, that is meaningful and inclusive, is essential to ensure that the UN human rights system is relevant and responsive to the situation on the ground. Civil society inputs assist to ensure that the outputs and recommendations of the UN human rights system are community informed and can be implemented effectively and efficiently at the local, national and regional levels.

♦ Civil society space at the UN must be expanded and protected by integrating all previous recommendations on access and participation, in particular:

◊ Ensure hybrid modalities for participation and move away from outdated platforms (e.g., Webex). At a minimum, the General Assembly should create a mandate for hybrid modalities for the Human Rights Council and mechanisms, as well as the Treaty Bodies, that allows UNOG and OHCHR to provide all stakeholders with the necessary channels to participate in meetings via relevant platforms in a permanent and timely manner. The UN should also adopt a system-wide approach by ensuring that hybrid modalities for participation are integral to its work, including in other multilateral fora, such as environmental processes, as well as the Commission on the Status of Women and the NGO Committee, among others.

◊ Similarly, the UN leadership and member states should work to expand physical access for accredited NGOs at all UN premises, and the ban on civil society during the UN General Assembly’s high-level segment should be ended. Similar modalities for civil society participation at the UN in Geneva should apply to civil society participation at the UN in New York and other UN fora, including access to informal negotiations.

◊ Given the crucial role that human rights defenders and victims of human rights violations play in the work of the UN human rights system, efforts must be made to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the mandate to prevent and address intimidation and reprisals against those engaging with the UN human rights system. The OHCHR Senior Official on reprisals should be provided with the resources to maintain a regularly updated, publicly accessible database of reprisals cases brought to the attention of the mandate. This database would bring greater visibility to cases and enable efficient and effective follow-up by NGOs and States. The database should include State responses and follow-up action by UN bodies. The Senior official should also carry out effective and consistent follow-up on all documented cases until they are resolved. This is more efficient and effective than relying on victims to proactively follow up on the status of their cases.

◊ The UN must be reformed to ensure that independent civil society including NGOs can participate in all UN bodies, mechanisms and processes safely, meaningfully and effectively. Among others, the ECOSOC NGO Committee should be reformed to ensure that accreditation processes become more fair, transparent, non-politicised, non-discriminatory and efficient. It must also end the practice of unduly stalling processes, sometimes indefinitely. Current processes, which involve the frequent and repeated deferral and delay of NGO applicants for accreditation, are highly inefficient as well as being incompatible with human rights standards regarding freedom of association and freedom from discrimination. The NGO Committee should also institute hybrid Q&A sessions for applicant NGOs to engage remotely and address the severe backlog of NGOs awaiting accreditation.