It differs markedly in organization, functions and powers, as well as public prominence, from the ten ‘treaty bodies’ established to monitor implementation of the key UN treaties (dealing respectively with civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, torture (a committee and a separate sub-committee), children’s rights, migrant workers’ rights, persons with disabilities and enforced disappearances. Each of the treaty bodies is distinctive in some respects; each has functions only in relation to the treaty creating it; each such treaty regime is now to some extent ‘monitored’ or ‘implemented’ or ‘developed’ by that body. 

Chapter 9 provides a systematic study of one such treaty body, the Human Rights Committee, created by and functioning within one of the UN’s two umbrella human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In 2024, 174 states are party to the ICCPR. We refer to it as the ‘ICCPR Committee’ to distinguish it from the ‘Human Rights Council’, with which it shares the same acronym (‘HRC’). …