Monitoring
Mechanisms

United Nations

Missions

Bodies

General Assembly

Economic and
Social Council

Human Rights Council

High Commissioner

International
mechanisms

Conventional

Extra-conventional

Complaint procedures

Anyone may bring a human rights problem to the attention of the United Nations, and thousands of people around the world do so every year.

 TREATY-BASED COMPLAINTS

Treaty-based complaints procedures are operational under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 22 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and article 14 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

These procedures can be applied in relation to States parties which have ratified (in the case of the Optional Protocol) or have made a declaration under the appropriate article (in the case of the aforementioned Conventions) recognising the competence of the relevant treaty monitoring body to receive and consider complaints.

Complaints may also be directed to the extra-conventional mechanisms or to the Working Group on Communications of the Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights that can act with respect to all States.

 ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1503

Pursuant to the Economic and Social Council resolution 1503 (XLVIII) of the 27th of May 1970, a Working Group of the Sub-Commission of the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, called the Working Group on Communications, screens thousands of communications (complaints) per year received from individuals and groups alleging the existence of systematic violations of human rights. Where the Working Group identifies reasonable evidence of a consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights, the matter is referred for examination by the full Sub-Commission. The Sub-Commission then decides whether to refer the situations to the Commission on Human Rights, through the Commission's Working Group on Situations. Subsequently, it is the turn of the Commission to make a decision concerning each particular situation brought to its attention.

All the initial steps of the process are confidential until a situation is referred to the Economic and Social Council. Since 1978, however, the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights has announced the names of countries that have been under examination. In this way, a pattern of abuses in a particular country, if not resolved in the early stages of the process, can be brought to the attention of the world community.

  COMMUNICATIONS UNDER EXTRA-CONVENTIONAL MECHANISMS

Country and thematic mechanisms that are extra-conventional have no formal complaint procedures.

The activities of the country and thematic mechanisms are based on communications received from various sources (the victims or their relatives, local or international NGOs, etc.) containing allegations of human rights violations. Such communications may be submitted in various forms (e.g. letters, faxes, e-mails) and may concern individual cases as well as details of situations of alleged violations of human rights.