The UN Human Rights Committee - A Year In Review 2021

Publication of a comprehensive analysis of the Views adopted by the Human Rights Committee in 2021

Human Rights Committee 136th session in Geneva

The Centre for Civil and Political Rights is delighted to introduce this analysis of the 2021 findings of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

This research has systematically been carried out since 2014 and considers the latest developments of the Committee’s jurisprudence.

During the year 2021, the Human Rights Committee held the 131st, 132nd and 133rd sessions. In these sessions, the Committee enlarged its jurisprudence by issuing a total of 93 individual communications. As it was the case in previous years, the Human Rights Committee receives the greatest number of communications out of all the United Nations treaty bodies, and the backlog of submissions continues to be a major issue of concern during 2021.

This research has been carried out in collaboration with the Law Clinic of the LL.M. in International Law of the Graduate Institute of Geneva. The students prepared the related research materials and produced the articles included in this yearbook under the supervision of the Head of the Law Clinic, Prof. Yuval Shany and the Centre.

I would like to thank the students who participated in the project, namely Laura Cestaro, Aakrishti Kumar, Anne-Luse Bloch, Falah Sayed, and Sugandha Sawhney. Additional research was carried out by Irene Aparicio, the intern at the Centre.

The purpose of this research is to make the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee become more visible and accessible to all individuals involved in the promotion and protection of civil and political rights. I am confident that this publication will be useful to litigators and human rights defenders.

- Patrick Mutzenberg, Director of the Centre for Civil and Political Rights