Engagement of Domestic Courts with the Findings of United Nations Human Rights Treaty Monitoring Bodies

Abstract

United Nations (UN) human rights treaty monitoring bodies put forward their interpretation of human rights treaty provisions through a wide range of general comments and recommendations, State-specific reports, and decisions on individual petitions. How exactly domestic legal practices are intertwined with UN treaty bodies’ findings remains understudied. The chapter examines how domestic courts engage with the findings of UN treaty bodies, which are generally considered as non-binding. Building on an analysis of court decisions, the chapter discusses examples of judicial engagement, and identifies normative pathways that connect domestic courts’ judicial reasoning with the findings of treaty monitoring bodies. Judicial amenability to international findings varies depending on each jurisdiction’s legal and sociological contexts. The flexible deliberative space involving domestic courts and UN treaty bodies allows judges to align with, adjust, or contest treaty interpretations put forward by the international guardians of human rights treaties.