Guide to International Human Rights Mechanisms - Brookings

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International Mechanisms | Human Rights Treaty Bodies
Anne Bayefsky, How to Complain to UN Human Rights Mechanisms: The Convention on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination, available at: www.bayefsky.com/complain/28_cerd.php.
COMMITTEE.ON.THE.ELIMINATION..
OF.DISCRIMINATION.AGAINST.WOMEN
Preliminary Note: It is recommended that applicants considering an individual communication to
this Committee seek the assistance of a lawyer or an experienced NGO.
Background The Committee was established by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to monitor state compliance and to elaborate and
explain that treaty’s requirements. It is composed of twenty-three experts elected by states parties
who serve in their individual capacities. The Committee considers periodic reports of states parties
on their progress in abiding by the CEDAW, issues “general comments” about the CEDAW’s
requirements, instigates “inquiries” and, for states that have ratified the Optional Protocol to the
CEDAW, considers individual complaints of violations of the treaty. 56
What you can Do If your state has ratified CEDAW and its optional protocol, you can file
communications for violations of IDPs’ rights under the CEDAW. Even if the state has not ratified the
optional protocol, if you represent an NGO, you can also provide general information on IDP rights
issues in advance of Committee consideration of state periodic reports, including through informal
meetings with Committee members. In addition, where available for your state, you can encourage the
Committee to undertake an inquiry concerning systemic women’s rights violations in a particular state.
evaluation The Committee’s power to accept individual communications is still fairly new and to
date it has entered views only on a single case. However, there are already a substantial number of
states that have become parties to the Optional Protocol which allows for this procedure.
In choosing between the Committee and other treaty bodies, it is useful to note that the CEDAW
contains a great deal more detail on the right of women to equal treatment in various areas of public
and private life – including in the area of economic, social and cultural rights – than many other
human rights instruments. On the other hand, the level of compliance with its recommendations is
still untested. Its authority will definitely not be as high as that of the regional human rights courts,
whose decisions are formally binding on states parties. Unfortunately, the Committee does not
provide free legal aid in preparing communications.
The Committee’s primary activity to date has been its consideration of state reports. It has
addressed IDP issues in a number of these, expressing its concern about violence against
displaced women in a number of countries, 57 and calling for greater efforts toward reintegration
56 The Committee also has the power to mediate disputes between states about the meaning of provisions of the CEDAW. However, no state
has ever invoked this power.
57 U.N. Docs. A/55/38 (Part I) at 25, para. 218; U.N. Doc. CEDAW/C/2000/I/CRP.3/Add.6/Rev.1; A/49/38 at 133, para. 757; CEDAW/
C/2000/I/CRP.3/Add.6/Rev.1; U.N. Doc. A/49/38 at 133.
Guide to International Human Rights Mechanisms
for Internally Displaced Persons and their Advocates 128