Multiple Submissions Before a Fractured Treaty Body System

The United Nations treaty body system, at present, suffers from at least two significant, systemic shortcomings: it fragments what ought to be interrelated and indivisible rights across different conventions and monitoring committees, and it has no power to implement recommendations against rights-violating states. These flaws have immediate and profound implications for human rights organizations, which, by strategic necessity, are required to file multiple, unique submissions, across multiple treaty bodies, in the hopes of raising awareness and generating change on a single, discrete instance of rights violation. To highlight the extent of this problem, this article focuses on a recent, emblematic case: Validity International’s campaign to expose appalling human rights violations against the residents of Topház Special Home in Hungary, which saw this single issue presented at least seven times before three treaty bodies over a seven-year period. The Topház case further serves as the basis for identifying lessons in effective treaty body advocacy for human rights organizations operating within this fractured system, and for discussing how the United Nations as an institution may resolve this problem through the creation of an integrated treaty body system

Political science · Treaty · European and International Law Studies · European Criminal Justice and Data Protection · European Union Policy and Governance · Law