Treaty Bodies

In addition to the political bodies whose mandate flows from the United Nations charter – that is, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the UN Secretariat – the UN has set up several treaty-based bodies. These bodies comprise committees of independent experts who monitor compliance with human rights standards and norms flowing from the core international human rights treaties.

With the exception of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which was established under a resolution of the Economic and Social Council to carry out the monitoring functions originally assigned to it under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, these treaty-based bodies are technically autonomous. They are established by the treaties that they monitor and are accountable to the state parties of those treaties, rather than UN subsidiaries. In practice though, the treaty-based bodies are closely intertwined with the UN system and are supported by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) and the UN Centre for Human Rights.

DAWN has a history of engaging with Treaty Bodies, particularly with the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the CEDAW Committee – which monitors the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We take part in this processes with the submission of shadow reports, training of civil society organizations to prepare shadow reports, delivering statements, and other forms of advocacy aimed at holding States accountable for the implementation of their human rights obligations and extraterritorial obligations (ETOs) on the basis of existing international law.

DAWN made substantive contributions to the elaboration of CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) General Recommendation 30 on Protection of Women’s Human Rights in Conflict and Post-Conflict Contexts (2013). We worked collaboratively from 2010 with International Women’s Rights Action Watch-Asia Pacific, Women and Media Collective, Sri Lanka, the Global Network of Women Peace-builders, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and WILD for Human Rights with the University of California at Berkeley Law School in this process. DAWN intervened to define the obligations of States for conduct and policies affecting rights extra-territorially, including the impact caused by actions and inaction of state and non-state actors, including IFIs and UN agencies. CEDAW GR 30 was adopted in 2013.

DAWN subsequently engaged with the CEDAW reviews of Sweden (2022), Belgium (2022), Switzerland (2022), Germany (2023), and CERD review of the the UK (2024) and the CESCR review of the UK (2025) focusing on COVID 19 and access to vaccines, medicines and therapeutics and the role of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). We also engaged with the Committees on the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Convention of Racial Discrimination (CERD) during the reviews of Australia, Canada and Japan vis-à-vis their extraterritorial accountability in the Pacific – on mining and extractivism, nuclear waste dumping, nuclear testing and deep sea mining.