Participating in oral NGO briefings

Most of the treaty bodies, namely the Committee against Torture (CAT), Human Rights Committee (HRC) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW) organize formal meetings prior to the public consideration of a state party report to receive oral briefings from NGOs.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), CEDAW and CESCR, devote specific meetings during their pre-sessional working groups for NGOs to provide oral briefings. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) will meet NGOs, but not in its formal session.

In all cases, it is advisable to check with the relevant secretariat about arrangements for oral briefings, including details about whether you have to sign up to a speakers list beforehand, how much time you will be given to speak; and which other NGOs may be present.

It can be useful to coordinate with other NGOs in order to make the most of the speaking time, which can sometimes be restricted to a few minutes only.

Whilst there are advantages to participating in oral briefings during formal meetings of the treaty body, it is still possible to meet informally with treaty body members. This may include meeting individual members privately but also organizing "informal" lunch (or breakfast) briefings at times when the treaty body is not meeting.

Concerning practical arrangements for the organization of informal lunch briefings – such as the booking of a room, ordering sandwiches, distribution of the invitation to Committee members etc. – you should also check with the Secretariat. You should also consider contacting other NGOs that may be interested to jointly organize such briefings outside of the regular meeting time of the treaty body.

Note that for some treaty bodies, there are already NGOs who coordinate other NGO input. For the CRC, this is the NGO Group for the CRC. For the CEDAW, International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) Asia Pacific facilitates NGO interaction. The International NGO Platform on the Migrant Workers' Convention coordinates NGO input for the CMW. For the Human Rights Committee, the Centre for Civil and Political Rights performs this role.

Attending the official session

Treaty bodies consider reports in open sessions. This means that members of the public, media and NGOs are allowed to attend. However, they are not allowed to participate in the proceedings.

NGOs might be able to arrange short meetings with treaty body members during breaks. However, treaty body members pose most of the questions to the government delegation during the first session and it is therefore crucial to have an opportunity to speak to members sufficiently in advance of the commencement of the session.

All treaty body meetings take place in Geneva with the exception of the CEDAW and the HRC which each hold one session a year at UN headquarters in New York.

Treaty bodies usually set aside 6 hours for the consideration of one state party report (CAT devotes less time than this). Some treaty bodies consider the report during the same day; others have two 3-hour sessions over different days.

While the working methods vary for each treaty body, usually some treaty body members are designated from within each committee to act as the country rapporteurs and they lead the discussion with the government delegation in that capacity.

Accreditation and other logistics

Security at the UN offices is very strict. NGOs wishing to attend a session need to notify the secretariat of the treaty body in advance in order to receive accreditation and a pass to enter the UN building. The treaty bodies do not pay for NGOs to attend the meetings.