Co-ordinated by the School’s Human Rights Implementation Centre, the conference, entitled 'Implementation of UN Treaty Body Concluding Observations: The Role of National and Regional Mechanisms in Europe’, will examine the methods for following up on Concluding Observations adopted by the UN Treaty Bodies on State reports.

The event will bring together senior officials from the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, secretariats and representatives from the membership of most of the United Nations Treaty Bodies together with the representatives of governments, parliaments, the judiciary, national human rights institutions and civil society.

Malcolm Evans, Professor of Public International Law and Chairperson of the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, said: “Treaty bodies produce an increasing number of excellent, practical recommendations, yet there remains a problem of ensuring that States implement them in a timely and effective fashion.

“The aim of this event is to review the experience and to engage in some radical thinking about how this situation can be addressed, in order to help inform the many high-level discussions which are taking place on this topic at the moment.”

The event is organised as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded study, which examines the role of non-binding 'soft-law' documents in the development of international human rights law.