Individual Communications Procedures of Treaty Bodies

States Parties in respect of which an individual communication has been registered by one of the Committees are notified by the Secretariat and invited to submit written observations within the time limits established by the relevant rules of procedure. Additional information on the procedures applicable to States Parties, including registration of communications, submission of observations on admissibility and merits, and follow-up to treaty body views, is available in the Information Note for States Parties on the procedures for the submission and consideration of individual communications. This document provides practical information to facilitate States Parties’ engagement with treaty bodies throughout the procedure.

For reasons of procedural efficiency and structural resource constraints, all Committees have decided to suspend, until further notice, the possibility for States parties to request that Committees consider the admissibility of a communication separately from its merits (split request). This suspension decision does not affect split requests submitted prior to 8 May 2024, which will continue to be treated as per usual practice.

To be registered and considered, your complaint must meet the following conditions:

• It must concern a State party that has recognized the competence of the Committee to receive complaints.
• The alleged violations must have occurred after the State recognized this competence unless such violations continued after that date.
• Domestic remedies must have been exhausted, unless you can prove that they are unavailable, ineffective, or unreasonably prolonged.
• The same matter must not be under review by another procedure of international investigation or settlement (for example, in the Inter-American, European, or African regional systems of human rights). For CAT, CED, CEDAW, CRC, CESCR and CRPD, the same matter must not have been examined by another procedure of international investigation or settlement.
• The complaint must be submitted within the time limit applicable to the relevant Committee (for example: 6 months for CERD, 1 year for CESCR and CRC and 5 years for CCPR).

While there are many commonalities how the Committees examine individual communications, there are some specificities in their Methods of Works as a result of the different treaties and optional protocols.

See the working methods, guidance and pending cases of each Committee:

• Committee Against Torture (CAT)
• Human Rights Committee (CCPR)
• Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
• Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
• Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
• Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
• Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED)
• Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Registration

Once you have submitted your complaint, it will arrive at a central Intake Unit, which acts on behalf of the Treaty Bodies. This Unit consists of lawyers, who receive, examine and process your initial complaint.

After you submit your complaint through the online submission portal, you will receive an automatic acknowledgment of receipt. Incomplete complaints or complaints that are not in line with formal requirements will not be processed and acknowledged.

At this stage, the review of your complaint will be based on the information you provide in the submission form only. This is why you are requested to fill the form as per the Guidance and to duly explain the violations you are alleging.

You will be informed you when your complaint has been accepted ("registered") by the relevant Treaty Body for further consideration.

When contacted, you must reply within the specified time, otherwise your file may be rejected and disposed of.

You will also be notified if your complaint has not been accepted. Such a decision of non-acceptance cannot be challenged, but you are free to resubmit your complaint when you are in a position to ensure your complaint meets the requirements.

Exchanges between the parties

Once you have been notified that your complaint has been accepted (‘registered’), it will be sent to the State asking them to submit observations on the matter within a set time frame. Those observations are then sent to you, to give you a chance to reply.

Please refrain from sending additional information or comments until you have received the Government’s observations on your complaint.

If you wish to respond to the observations by the State, you will need to do so within the time specified in the letter.

Parties should limit their submissions to 10,000 words excluding annexes.

Consideration by the Committee

When the round of exchanges between the parties are exhausted, the case is ready to be considered by the Committee. In view of the number of cases pending, the Committee’s decision may only be adopted several years after registration.

The Committee considers each case in closed session. Although some Committees have provisions for oral hearings in their rules of procedure, the practice has been to consider complaints only on the basis of the written information.

As a general rule and in order to expedite the proceedings, the Committees examine the admissibility of a complaint jointly with the merits.

Follow-up

When the Committee concludes that a violation of a treaty provision has taken place, the State is invited to provide information, within 90 or 180 days, on the steps it has taken to implement the recommendations.

The State’s response is then transmitted to the complainant for comments.

If the State party fails to take appropriate action, the case is kept under consideration by the Committee under the follow-up procedure.

Information related to follow-up to the Committees’ Views and recommendations is not confidential.

Processing times vary depending on the Committee, the complexity of the case, on how swiftly the parties give the Committee the information it needs and many other factors.

It may take months or even years before a complaint is registered and the Committee’s decision may only be adopted several years after registration.

The JURIS database is a central repository of the jurisprudence of the United Nations Treaty Bodies.

It facilitates access to decisions on individual complaints on human rights violations by eight treaty bodies and aims at assisting the public, States, national human rights institutions, civil society, academia, as well as the United Nations, international and regional mechanisms to research the vast body of legal interpretation of international human rights law as it has evolved over the years.

It may also provide guidance to persons preparing complaints to be submitted to the Committees by providing access to the views and decisions taken by them on specific human rights issues regarding different countries.

Note that the JURIS database only contains those decisions that have been issued as official United Nations documents.

For recent jurisprudence adopted at the Committees’ sessions, you may refer to the Treaty Body Database.

See also Jurisprudence Highlights of CRC, CRPD, CESCR, CED and CEDAW.

• 2024
• April - November 2023
• November 2022 - March 2023
• September - October 2022

Child-friendly versions of CRC decisions are available on the link.

A third-party intervention, also known as an amicus curiae brief, is an independent submission to an individual communication procedure by someone who is not a party to the proceedings. The core function of Third Party Interventions (TPIs) is to provide a legal opinion or additional information that may help the Treaty Bodies when deciding on the case. Usually, it clarifies or expands an argument or legal reasoning either on procedural aspects, such as the admissibility of an individual communication or on the merits of the case; it is not supposed to add to or contend the facts of the case.

• CESCR Guidance on TPIs
• CCPR Guidance on TPIs
• CEDAW Guidelines on TPIs
• CAT Guidelines on TPIs
• CRC Guidelines on TPIs
• CRPD Guidelines on TPIs
• CERD Guidelines on TPIs

2025 Facts & Figures

• A total of 2,917 incoming communications processed in 2025. As of 31 December 2025, 616 pre-screened cases are pending further analysis.
• Out of 485 new individual communications received by eight Committees, 306 individual communications were transmitted to 49 countries and added to the lists of registered cases.
• Committees adopted 277 final decisions on individual cases. This includes 132 cases that Committees decided to discontinue because the case has been resolved positively, the authors have lost an interest in pursuing the case or it has become moot. This regularly happens in eviction or non-refoulement cases.
• As of 5 February 2026, out of a total of 1,600 living registered cases, 579 cases are expecting observations by the parties and 857 cases are procedurally ready for examination.

For additional figures, see the biennial reports of the Secretary-General on the status of the human rights treaty body systemand the supplementary information (annexes) as well as the annual reports of Treaty Bodies.Individual Communications Procedures of Treaty Bodies produce concrete and positive results for numerous individuals around the globe. Some States have taken legislative measures, suspended deportations or evictions, released individuals from detention, overturned judicial decisions, granted residence permits, financial compensation or public apologies, among others.

Human Rights Impact Stories highlight the direct impact on victims or positive change in legislation or policy in a State Party or impact on the development of international law and jurisprudence. See the annual non-exhaustive compilations of Human Rights Impact Stories.

If your complaint does not meet all the criteria for submitting a complaint to the treaty bodies, you may have other options. Please use this comparison table to help you find the best option for submitting a complaint of an alleged human rights violation to the UN.