Treaty body

In international law, a treaty body (or treaty-based body) is an internationally established body of independent experts that monitors how States party to a particular international legal instrument are implementing their obligations under it.

Definitions The International Law Commission defines an "expert treaty body" as:"a body consisting of experts serving in their personal capacity, which is established under a treaty and is not an organ of an international organization."A research guide published by the UN library lists key characteristics of human rights treaty-based bodies:

They "derive their existence from provisions contained in a specific legal instrument", They hold more narrow mandates, being often limited to the set of powers codified in the treaty establishing them, The audiences that treaty bodies address are limited to countries having ratified the legal instrument (as opposed to UN agencies which enjoy a quasi-universal audience), Their decision-making often involves consensus.

Notably, the experts composing treaty bodies usually serve in their personal capacity (i.e., not representing their country). Treaty bodies are distinct from "international organizations" as such, like United Nations agencies, programs, or other sui generis international organizations.

There are a number of treaty bodies, in particular in relation with international human rights law. However, there are also treaty bodies related to non-human rights instruments such as the UPOV or the INCB. The mandates of treaty bodies is generally defined in the treaty that establishes them, and sometimes by General Assembly decisions or resolutions. Treaty bodies sometimes perform additional functions than the sole monitoring of treaty compliance.

List of treaty bodies +List of treaty bodies (non-exhaustive)Treaty bodyTreatyDate of creationHeadquarterCommittee Against TortureUnited Nations Convention against Torture1987GenevaHuman Rights Committee (CCPR)International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights1977GenevaInternational Narcotics Control Board (INCB)1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs1968Vienna1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic SubstancesInternational Whaling Commission (IWC)International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling1946ImpingtonSecretariat of the Convention on Biological DiversityConvention on Biological Diversity1992MontrealCartagena Protocol on BiosafetyNagoya Protocol on Fair Access and Benefit-SharingInternational Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV)International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants1968GenevaInternational Seabed Authority (ISA)United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea1994Kingston

Treaty body

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