Closing Remarks - E-Discussion: How to Strengthen Engagement with the International Human Rights Machinery?

Dear friends,

Following eight weeks of the e-Discussion 'How to Engage with the International Human Rights Machinery?' we are coming to a close. We will be posting contributions until Thursday June 14.

In the three parts of the e-Discussion, we have explored how to strengthen engagement with the Human Rights Treaty Bodies and explored what is working and what is not in this process; looked into the engagement of UN agencies with Special Procedures and how these mechanisms can impact national policy and UN programming; finally, we have discussed how UN agencies and UN Country Teams (UNCT) can use the recommendations of Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures to influence national policy and to strengthen their own country programming.

The e-Discussions brought together colleagues from a variety of different UN agencies to discuss this issue. The substantive contributions and experiences shared by members show that the observations of Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures can raise awareness on important human rights issues otherwise overlooked in development strategies. Also, these recommendations and processes can make a critical difference when they feed into concrete national processes dealing with legal, policy or institutional reforms. In that respect, all the experiences have shown that the more the knowledge about Treaty Body processes and Special Procedures and their roles and the greater the involvement of national actors in the process of reporting and following up to Treaty Bodies and visits of Special Procedures, the more these mechanisms will be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat. In addition, a growing number of events organized to help national actors to follow up on the recommendations of treaty bodies are demonstrating a rich potential for concrete national follow-up, when national actor! s are challenged and given the opportunity to do so - another entry point for UN agencies.

On behalf of the moderation team, we want to sincerely thank all contributors for making this e-Discussion so educational, constructive and lively. Colleagues that have not had time yet to contribute can still do so and their input will be incorporated into the final e-Discussion summary.

We are currently discussing the follow up to the e-Discussion including the ways of using the content for guidance material for practitioners working in this area. We feel that the level of discussion has been such that a more substantial follow up is needed to adequately reflect the inputs provided.

We would like to encourage you to send us your feedback to the e-Discussion as well as your ideas for the follow activities. Also, if you have or know of any useful resources/tools developed in this area then please do send these on to us so that we can include them in our guidance material developed. We will shortly post the final e-Discussion summary on the network.

Your moderation team,

Suki Beavers
Human Rights Specialist, UNDP Pacific Centre , Fiji Islands
Alfonso Barragues
Human Rights Officer, MDG Unit, OHCHR, Geneva
Wan-Hea Lee
Secretary, United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, OHCHR, Geneva
Daniel Seymour
Head of Gender Equality and Human Rights Unit, UNICEF New York
Emilie Filmer-Wilson
HURITALK Facilitator, UNDP Oslo Governance Centre