44 PROMOTING AND PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS CHAPTER V HUMAN RIGHTS TREATY BODIES Summary: The United Nations treaty-based human rights system includes procedures through which members of minorities can seek protection of their rights. This chapter describes eight major international human rights treaties which deal respectively with civil and political rights; economic, social and cultural rights; racial discrimination; children’s rights; women’s rights; torture; the rights of persons with disabilities; and migrant workers’ rights. The first section outlines the system of State reporting common to all human rights treaties and suggests ways in which minorities and their representatives can raise their concerns before international treaty bodies. The second section describes the complaint mechanisms available under six of the treaties to individuals who believe that their rights have been violated. United Nations human rights treaties There are nine core, legally binding international human rights treaties within the United Nations human rights system which deal with a broad range of human rights.54 The most recent is the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which entered into force on 23 December 2010. For each treaty there is a dedicated committee which monitors the way in which States are fulfilling their human rights obligations under the respective treaty (see fig. IV). The committees, generally known as treaty bodies, are composed of international human rights experts and vary in size from 10 to 25 members. Committee members serve four-year terms, and several treaties limit the number of terms a member can serve. Although they are elected by the States parties to the treaty, members serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of their Governments. The committees meet for several weeks each year, usually in Geneva; the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Human Rights Committee meet once in New York and twice in Geneva. If a country is not a party to a relevant treaty, the treaty’s procedures to redress violations cannot be invoked. In such situations, procedures based on the Charter of the United Nations, created by the United Nations Human Rights Council and other bodies (described in chapters III and IV), offer a way to address the human rights situation in the country. OHCHR has an open consultation Treaty Body Strengthening Process under way aimed at streamlining and further strengthening the treaty body system.55 The full text of each treaty and a list of the States which have ratified it are available from http://treaties.un.org. 54 See www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/HRTD/index.htm (accessed 30 November 2012). 55