Treaty Bodies under pressure: stronger together with the UPR
Delays, growing backlogs, and limited resources are increasingly affecting the functioning of the UN treaty body system. These challenges have direct consequences for individuals seeking justice and raise broader questions about the system’s efficiency and accessibility. At the heart of this situation lies a key question: how can treaty bodies remain effective, relevant and accessible despite growing structural and resource constraints?
These issues were at the centre of a side event held during the 61st session of the Human Rights Council on 24 February 2026, titled “Treaty Bodies System in Crisis: Implications for the Human Rights Council.” The event, organised by several States and partners, brought together representatives of governments, treaty bodies, and civil society to discuss how to strengthen the system’s resilience.
The event was organised by the Permanent Missions of the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Morocco, and Switzerland, and co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of Australia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and the Geneva Human Rights Hub. It brought together representatives of States, treaty body members, and civil society to discuss both structural challenges and possible avenues for improving the functioning of the system.
A system under pressure
Speakers highlighted a range of pressures, including reduced meeting time, cancelled sessions, and delays in reviewing State reports and individual complaints. While financial constraints were mentioned, participants' interventions emphasised that the challenges are also structural and require practical responses.
Suggestions included improving working methods, strengthening coordination across mechanisms, and making better use of digital tools. The importance of ensuring meaningful civil society participation was also repeatedly underlined. In this regard, Ms. Yvonne Donders (Human Rights Committee) and Mr. Markus Schefer (Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), speaking in their personal capacities, both pointed out how resource constraints and growing backlogs affect the ability of treaty bodies to respond effectively. They stressed the need for closer coordination and more innovative approaches, including strengthened cooperation across treaty bodies.
The UPR as a complementary mechanism
As a speaker at the event, Mona M'Bikay, Executive Director of UPR Info, highlighted the important role that the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) can play in supporting the treaty body system.
The UPR was established to “complement and not duplicate” the work of treaty bodies. As she noted, in practice “UPR recommendations and follow-up have increasingly contributed to supporting the work of treaty bodies, in particular by reinforcing their findings through implementation at the national level”.
The UPR's universal scope—covering all UN Member States regardless of treaty ratification—makes it a particularly powerful tool to broaden engagement and visibility to issues covered in the Treaty Bodies. This complementarity is also visible across the different stages of the UPR cycle. During the preparation phase, information from treaty bodies is included in the UN Compilation report, ensuring that their findings inform the review. During the interactive dialogue, States regularly issue recommendations related to treaty ratification and implementation, thereby reinforcing treaty body standards. In the implementation phase, these recommendations can be used alongside treaty body concluding observations to support follow-up at the national level.
This creates a mutually reinforcing dynamic: treaty bodies provide expert guidance, while the UPR helps drive implementation and attention. As highlighted during the discussion, this also strengthens national ownership by encouraging States to prioritise recommendations and engage in inclusive follow-up processes.
Taken together, these elements illustrate how the UPR and treaty bodies are mutually reinforcing within the international human rights system, particularly in supporting the implementation of recommendations. This, in turn, contributes to fostering national ownership, as she highlighted, noting that “it encourages States to prioritise recommendations and engage in inclusive follow-up processes”.
The discussion confirmed that better coordination between UN human rights mechanisms is essential to address current challenges. Strengthening the link between the UPR and treaty bodies is a practical and achievable way to enhance impact and implementation of human rights commitments.
For UPR Info, this remains a key priority: ensuring that international human rights recommendations lead to concrete improvements on the ground.
The full summary of the side event is available below for further information.