On Friday 18 August 2017, the Center for Global Public Law attended the Istanbul Consultation on the 2020 Review of the United Nations (UN) Treaty Body System – Strengthening the UN Treaty Body System. Columbia University invited experts from academia, civil society, and persons with experience working in the UN and regional human rights systems to participate in the Istanbul consultation. This consultation took place over one day at the Columbia Global Center in Istanbul. The main agenda item involved assessing the role of the UN Treaty Bodies in the wider ecosystem of international and regional human rights mechanisms, and how this might vary in different institutional settings.

CGPL presented a concept paper on Individual Complaints to UN Treaty Bodies authored by Professor Başak Çalı, Dr Alexandre Skander Galand, Dr Valentina Azarova. The submission offered an overview of the insights gained through the CGPL’s research and analysis of the UNTB case law.

Three areas of Center for Global Public Law’s (CGPL) work pertain to UN Treaty Bodies (UNTBs):

1) CGPL is a hub for reporting on the Views of the eight UNTBs from 2014 onwards, for the Oxford University Press Oxford Reports on International Law (we supplied over one hundred case notes as of June 2017)

2) CPPL published a series of essay-long analysis on the CGPL blog covering thematic, substantive, and procedural aspects of UNTB individual complaints jurisprudence; and

3) CGPL organised a stock-taking workshop of the UN treaty body complaints that took place in June 2017 in Istanbul. It included interventions by UNTB members, civil society and OHCHR representatives, and specialized rights experts.