Individual Communications

In one line

An individual communication is a complaint by a person that a State party has violated their rights under a treaty, admissible only where that State has separately accepted the procedure, decided in closed session on written material, and resulting in views that are authoritative interpretations rather than binding judgments.

Where the procedure comes from

It is never in the parent treaty's main text as a compulsory obligation. It arrives in one of two forms.

By optional protocol: the Civil and Political Covenant's first Optional Protocol of 1966, the Economic, Social and Cultural Covenant's Optional Protocol of 2008 in force 5 May 2013, the Women's Convention protocol of 1999, the Child Convention's third protocol of 2011, and the Disabilities Convention protocol of 2006.

By declaration in the treaty itself: article 14 of the Racial Discrimination Convention, article 22 of the Torture Convention, article 77 of the Migrant Workers Convention, and article 31 of the Enforced Disappearance Convention.

Either way it is optional, so the reach of the strongest mechanism in the treaty system is set by a second act of consent after ratification.

Admissibility

The conditions are broadly common across the bodies.

The State must have accepted the procedure, and the events must post-date its acceptance unless they continue.

The author must be a victim, personally and actually affected, or act with authority for one, or show why authority could not be obtained.

Domestic remedies must be exhausted, unless their application is unreasonably prolonged or they are ineffective.

The same matter must not be under examination by another procedure of international investigation or settlement, which is the rule that forces a choice between a treaty body and a regional mechanism.

The claim must be substantiated and must fall within the treaty.

And some States enter reservations to the protocol itself, excluding matters already examined elsewhere or excluding particular articles.

How a case runs

On paper, and in private.

Registration and transmission to the State.

Interim measures may be requested where irreparable harm is threatened, typically to halt a deportation or an execution. These are requests, and their disregard is treated by the committees as a breach of the State's obligations under the protocol.

The State's observations on admissibility and merits, the author's comments in reply, and further exchanges.

No oral hearing and no witnesses. The committee decides on documents.

Views are adopted in closed session and then published, finding a violation or not, and, where a violation is found, indicating the remedy: release, compensation, reopening of proceedings, quashing of a conviction, non-refoulement, and measures to prevent recurrence.

Follow-up is conducted by a special rapporteur on follow-up to views, with the State asked to report on implementation.