Akshaya Kumar is Deputy United Nations Director at Human Rights Watch.

A Midlife Crisis for the Treaty-Based Human Rights System?

An external view of Palais Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, August 2010. © UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

From the work of experts on human rights treaty bodies, such as the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Human Rights Committee, to the recent regular Universal Periodic Review of all countries' rights records by the Human Rights Council, there is now an expansive global structure to assess, monitor and criticize human rights violations.