Cynical savings or reasonable reform? Reflections on a single unified UN human rights treaty body

In its 2005 Plan of Action, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) publicly stated: ‘In the long term … it seems clear that some means must be found to consolidate the work of the seven treaty bodies and to create a unified standing treaty body.’1 The OHCHR also promised proposals for a unified standing treaty body2 to be discussed at an intergovernmental meeting in 2006.3 These proposals were set out in a Concept Paper produced in March 2006,4 in which the High Commissioner's view that the ‘overarching objectives’ of reform are to ‘secure comprehensive and holistic implementation by States Parties of the obligations in the treaties’ and to ‘strengthen the level of protection provided to rights-holders at the national level’ was presented.5 This implies that the present system is failing to adequately fulfil either objective. The main reasons for this are the difficulties facing the treaty bodies vis á vis the volume of work they face and the lack of adequate resources.