United Nations — Geneva

Beyond Strasbourg, the United Nations human rights bodies, based in Geneva, offer distinct international avenues of redress. Just Rights Europe acts before them selectively, where the nature of the complaint, the situation of the State concerned or the outcome of European proceedings justifies it.

These mechanisms are not a second chance after Strasbourg. They rest on different treaties, applied by separate bodies, with their own admissibility rules. They are, however, of real interest in a number of situations: where a right is not protected by the European Convention, or not in the same way; where the State concerned is not a member of the Council of Europe; or where a coordinated international strategy is called for.

The treaty bodies

Each of the major United Nations human rights treaties has its own committee of independent experts. Provided that the State concerned has accepted the committee's competence to receive individual communications, an individual may submit a complaint to it after exhausting domestic remedies.

• Human Rights Committee — International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (communications under the First Optional Protocol): right to life, prohibition of torture, liberty and security of person, fair trial, private and family life, freedom of expression, non-discrimination, rights of minorities.
• Committee against Torture — Convention against Torture (Article 22): torture and ill-treatment, the principle of non-refoulement, the duty to investigate.
• Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women — CEDAW (Optional Protocol).
• Committee on the Rights of the Child — Convention on the Rights of the Child (third Optional Protocol establishing a communications procedure).
• Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — CRPD (Optional Protocol).
• Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination — ICERD (Article 14).
• Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights — ICESCR (Optional Protocol): housing, social security, health, education, work.
• Committee on Enforced Disappearances — International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance: individual communications under Article 31, which are conditional on a declaration of acceptance by the State, and the urgent action procedure under Article 30, open in respect of any State Party, with no prior declaration and no exhaustion of domestic remedies.

We verify, for each State, the existence and scope of the declarations of acceptance and of any reservations. Examination of the same matter by another international procedure is excluded by the very text of most of the protocols; under the First Optional Protocol to the Covenant, which covers only matters that are pending, only a reservation by the State excludes matters that have already been examined, in particular in Strasbourg.

The special procedures

Independently of the treaties, the Human Rights Council has established special rapporteurs, independent experts and thematic or country-specific working groups. Matters may be brought before these mechanisms without prior exhaustion of domestic remedies and without any requirement of acceptance by the State.

• Working Group on Arbitrary Detention: Opinions in individual cases on whether a deprivation of liberty is arbitrary, together with an urgent action procedure.
• Special rapporteurs (torture, the independence of judges and lawyers, freedom of expression, migrants, human rights defenders, housing, among others): communications, urgent appeals and letters of allegation addressed to the State.
• Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

These procedures do not lead to a binding decision, but they exert real public and diplomatic pressure and may be used alongside contentious proceedings.

The Human Rights Council

We also act, for organisations and collectives, in the context of the Universal Periodic Review (written stakeholder submissions) and of the Human Rights Council complaint procedure, which is reserved for consistent patterns of gross and reliably attested violations of all human rights and all fundamental freedoms and is subject to the exhaustion of domestic remedies.

Our role

• Comparative analysis of the available routes: Strasbourg, Geneva, or both, in what order and with what interaction between them.
• Verification of admissibility: exhaustion of remedies, the absence of examination of the same matter by another international body, and the time limits for lodging a complaint, laid down in some cases by the treaty itself — six months before CERD, one year under the Optional Protocols to the ICESCR and to the Convention on the Rights of the Child — or by a committee's rules of procedure, such as the Human Rights Committee's five-year rule.
• Drafting the individual communication and the observations in reply to the State.
• Requests for interim measures before the competent committee.
• Bringing matters before the special procedures and drafting urgent appeals.
• Follow-up on the implementation of Views and Opinions.

An international practice

Unlike the European Court, the United Nations bodies may be seised of cases against States outside the Council of Europe. We examine such cases on a case-by-case basis, in the light of the international commitments of the State concerned and of the genuine prospects of the procedure.