In small groups, participants explored recommendations for actions in four key areas. The main challenges and recommendations from each group are summarised below.
New ideas for accountability mechanisms and the treaty body system
The human rights treaty bodies are committees of independent experts that monitor implementation of the core international human rights treaties. As more countries ratify treaties, and with an overall decline in funding which limits capacity, the treaty bodies are under growing pressure to respond to a backlog of reports. Country capacity to produce the reports is also strained. Some questioned the non-harmonisation among the treaty bodies and suggested a lack of transparency on how the treaty bodies work and how funds are used and disbursed. Recommendations for action included the following:
- Increase resources to the treaty bodies and strengthen predictability of reporting.
- During UN80 reforms, consider who will benefit from the reforms: the country administrations who are reporting, or those who are implementing human rights on the ground?
- Change the reporting system so that countries need only present one report for all the treaties in a five-year cycle, although there was debate about whether this would risk certain human rights abuses being overlooked.
- Remember that the solutions must also help communities, not just ease the reporting responsibility of states.
- Work with national mechanisms for monitoring and reporting and incorporate this into the reporting process for the treaty bodies
- Organise regional bodies and meetings for treaty bodies which are smaller, requiring less travel.
- Track data of how recommendations from treaty bodies and special procedures are used in other spaces, as it is useful in legal processes.
- States can lead the process to make high quality recommendations to the binding resolution on treaty bodies in 2026 to support the strengthening of the system. Civil society organisations may need training to advocate for implementable recommendations.
- Learn lessons from previous rounds of treaty body reforms, and from the Council of Europe, and draw on the leadership of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
- Acknowledge the voluntary nature of the treaty body members’ service and the value their expertise generates.
Building public support for human rights
The public conversation on human rights has been captured by the anti-rights movement, which is highly creative and powerful in appealing to audiences globally. Recommendations for action to counter this included the following:
- Conduct research to better understand anti-rights movements and how they work.
- Map out existing and potential partnerships, governments, and networks that do and could support human rights, and engage them in strategic communication planning and implementation.
- Build a positive narrative on human rights rather than debunking or correcting anti-rights narratives. This includes reframing messaging around security and economic prosperity and demonstrating that human rights are a framework for security and stability. Tell the story of the success of the European Union’s peace, security, and prosperity more effectively to demonstrate the value of human rights.
- Focus on persuadable audiences, build trust, simplify language, and be emotional.
- Build empowerment through civic education curricula, and a voting license.
- Build new alliances and connections across borders, movements, and sectors.
- Leverage and enhance the power of youth movements and schools.
- Train journalists and independent media to report on human rights.
- Engage with local authorities and mayors who can play a significant role in protecting people whose human rights are abused (such as migrants and refugees) and support local level solidarity and awareness.
Operationalising new coalitions
As human rights are increasingly threatened, operationalising new coalitions is a vital response. Recommendations for action included the following:
- Map existing coalitions and partnerships to identify areas of work and overlapping agendas, and what configuration is needed for a more strategic approach to promoting and securing human rights.
- Identify how intersectionality can frame the coalitions that are strengthened or built.
- Identify actors to target including civil society organisations, youth, movements, states and the private sector.
- Explore the role of states and how to collaborate with them as duty-bearers and implementers.
- Create guiding principles for coalitions to work together, leading to strategic objectives and short-, medium-, and long-term planning for implementation.
- Collectively devise a powerful strategic communication strategy and work with representatives from groups to co-create and champion messages targeting different audiences. Include messaging about the connections between human rights and safe and secure societies.
- Bring the life experiences, voices, and representation of youth, women, people with disabilities, and Indigenous peoples to local and regional meetings and elevate to the global level.
- Think beyond the conventional spaces for engagement of air-conditioned offices and modern urban spaces and consider libraries, cafes, and community meet-ups as places to visit and engage meaningfully.
Strengthening the international human rights architecture
As funding and capacity decreases, and the universality of human rights is challenged across the globe, how can the international human rights architecture be strengthened?
Recommendations for action included the following:
- Identify challenges and understand why universal jurisdiction is not being used. For example, a network across Spain, France, and Germany shares experiences.
- States to allow the application of universal jurisdiction (which is possible in some places and not others) and to train judges and prosecutors on implementation.
- Civil society to advocate preserving and prioritising special procedure country visits, both official and academic, and explore combining mandates.
- National courts to increase the use of regional and international jurisprudence, including a legal education priority to encourage judicial clerks.
- Policy experts to spend more time and coordinate with those with lived experience and encourage policy experts from within communities.
- Ensure safe spaces at international meetings and events for advocates and community representatives (including translation) and advise activists to make state representatives aware of risks to advocates.
- Intermediaries who bring activists to international human rights mechanisms should also bring independent and alternative journalists who can report back to their country.
- Civil society and states to advocate for more inclusive recruitment to appoint more candidates to treaty bodies from the global majority.
- Civil society, states, and the UN to recognise non-state, community-led accountability mechanisms such as peoples’ tribunals.
- The UN should systematise, and civil society should advocate for, meaningful and inclusive consultation and impact assessments in the UN reform process.
- The UN should quantify the pro bono value of the treaty bodies and fact-finding missions to account for value that is lost when costs are cut.
- Build the case for increased resources to the human rights pillar of the UN.