Strengthening engagement with the international human rights machinery: a practitioner's guide

The UN member states’ commitment to actively protect and promote all human rights and support their further mainstreaming throughout the United Nations system requires increasing interaction and strengthened engagement with the existing international human rights machinery.

Written for the development practitioner - in particular the non-human rights expert, this guide aims to provide an overview on how to strengthen engagement with the international human rights machinery, specifically with UN Treaty Bodies and UN Special Procedures. The guide is divided into two parts, each part providing a summary of the mechanism’s activities and how to best engage directly in that work, with case studies to illustrate examples of strengthening engagement: 

• first discussed, are UN Treaty Bodies - these are committees of independent experts that monitor implementation of the seven international human rights treaties. Each human rights treaty creates its own Treaty Body or monitoring committee 
  
• the second section looks at UN Special Procedures- this refers to the mechanisms and procedures established by the Human Rights Council to review specific human rights topics or country situations. Special Procedures are either an individual or a working group, usually composed of five members.