On February 4th the NGO’s asked the UN Secretary-General to guarantee their access to UN Treaty Body reviews. Vincent Ploton, Director of Development and Treaty Body Advocacy at the Geneva office of the NGO International Service for Human Rights notes that there is a continued “lack of physical access to UN premises during in-person reviews, despite the fact that states and UN Treaty Body members have access. This was raised notably during a meeting between NGOs and OHCHR officials on 29 November 2021”.
“The fact that in 2021 states were able to access UN premises — including Palais Wilson and Palais des Nations — to participate in UNTB reviews, but NGOs were not, or only some NGOs, constitutes a serious and worrying precedent. It is incompatible with the basic and well-established principle of equality of access to UNTB reviews by both state and non-state actors. Unless clear indications are provided and publicly disseminated by OHCHR and UNTBs providing access to in-person sessions of UNTBs to civil society, there is a risk that such limited access could become a practice beyond the pandemic.”