M. UN Human Rights Treaty Body Documentation

Introduction

Documentation issued for UN human rights treaty-monitoring bodies includes not only sessional documents of an organizational or procedural nature that are similar to sessional documents of other UN bodies (agendas, meeting records, draft and annual reports, etc.) but also the following clearly identifiable types of documents: 

-     Reports periodically submitted by States parties in compliance with their obligations under the eight principal UN human rights treaties, providing detailed information on political, social and economic conditions, government policies, institutions, legislation and measures taken to implement provisions of the treaties;

-     Lists of issues: requests from treaty bodies for additional information from States parties prior to consideration of periodic reports;

-      Replies to lists of issues: additional information provided by States parties in response to lists of issues prepared by treaty bodies;

-          Concluding observations of treaty bodies concerning reports by States parties, identifying concerns about non-compliance and making recommendations for action by the State party;

-          Responses or comments by States parties on the concluding observations of treaty bodies;

-          Jurisprudence (final decisions, views and opinions) on individual complaints and communications relating to States parties;

-          "General Comments" by treaty bodies on thematic issues in treaties. 

The purpose of the present indexing guidelines is to ensure that users can locate treaty body documentation by combinations of the following elements: treaty body series symbol (tag 191 $b); uniform title for the treaty (tag 630); consistently assigned primary subject terms, including the geographic terms for States parties (tag 650); names of States parties as corporate authors (tag 710); and the type of document (tag 089). Therefore it is important that indexers assign those fields in a consistent manner.

The following eight committees monitor the corresponding human rights treaties:

Each committee has its own rules of procedure and working languages in which its documents may be issued; for instance, the working languages of the Human Rights Committee are Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish, while the working languages of the Committee against Torture are English, French, Russian and Spanish.

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Human rights treaty body document series symbols

Most documents are issued under the series symbols of the committees: CAT/C/, CCPR/C/, CEDAW/C/, CERD/C/, CMW/C/, CRC/C/, CRPD/C/ and E/C.12/.

Documentation for the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child is issued under the symbols CRC/C/OPAC/ and CRC/C/OPSC/ (continuing series symbol CRC/OPSA/ from 2005). When OPAC and OPSC documents are not issued for sessions of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, such as periodic reports of States parties to the Optional Protocols, they are indexed under series symbols CRC/C/OPAC/ and CRC/C/OPSC/. When they are issued for sessions of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, they are indexed under the series symbol CRC/C/ and the appropriate session number, even though the document symbol appears as CRC/C/OPAC/ or CRC/C/OPSC/.

Documentation for the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture is issued under document series symbol CAT/OP/.

Meeting records and annual reports of the Human Rights Committee to the General Assembly are also included in the series Official Records of the Human Rights Committee (document series symbol CCPR/).

Documentation for meetings of States parties to the treaties and their optional protocols is issued under document series symbols CAT/OP/SP/, CAT/SP/, CCPR/SP/, CEDAW/SP/, CERD/SP/, CRC/SP/, CRPD/CSP/.

Selected decisions of the Human Rights Committee and Committee against Torture are compiled and published as UN sales publications. Prior to 1995, meeting records and reports of the Human Rights Committee to the General Assembly were published as UN sales publications in the series Yearbook of the Human Rights Committee.

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Analysis and indexing of human rights treaty body documentation

The approach to analysis and indexing of treaty body documentation varies depending on the document type, which may be grouped into distinct categories that are common to most of the treaty bodies:

1. Documentation of an organizational or procedural nature

Documentation of an organizational or procedural nature issued for specific sessions of treaty bodies is indexed in accordance with the Guidelines for specific types of UN documents and publications: Works of an organizational, administrative or procedural nature

Apply the Guidelines for indexing agendas, lists of participants, election of members, rules of procedure, etc.

2. Meeting records (Content Code B03)

3. Annual or sessional reports of human rights treaty bodies (Content Code B04)

4. Draft reports of human rights treaty bodies (Content Code B08)

5. Periodic reports of States parties to UN human rights treaties (Content Code B14)

6. Lists of issues or questions to States parties (Content Code B27)

7. Replies of States parties to lists of questions from human rights treaty bodies (Content Code B27)

8. Concluding observations of human rights treaty bodies (Content Code B24)

9. Comments by States parties on concluding observations of treaty bodies (Content Code B24)

10. Jurisprudence (decisions, views and opinions) of human rights treaty bodies (Content Code B25)

11. General comments of human rights treaty bodies (Content Code B26)

12. Days of general discussion