National Mechanisms for Reporting and Follow-up

This Guide seeks to provide practical advice on the critical elements that States need to consider when establishing or strengthening their national mechanism for reporting and follow-up, and illustrates this advice with examples of State practice. It is based on the more comprehensive Study of State Engagement with International Human Rights Mechanisms (HR/PUB/16/1/Add.1), which contains more detailed information on these practices. The ongoing increase in ratifications, with the consequent rise in both State reports and individual complaints, as well as the growing number of special procedure mandates and related country invitations, have all led to increasingly competing requirements for States. For instance, they need to cooperate with and periodically report to all of these international human rights mechanisms (and when applicable regional ones too), implement treaty obligations, and track and follow up the implementation of the many recommendations emanating from these international mechanisms.