Based on the obligations of States Parties to respect, protect and realize human rights under various core international Covenants on human rights, the UN has set up specialized treaty bodies and their monitoring mechanisms to determine how all States Parties have actually performed such Covenants. The treaty bodies concerning the two Covenants are the Human Rights Committee, which oversees the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which oversees the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. By reviewing the State reports, general comments or ways to accept individual complaints lodged by all States Parties, the treaty bodies supervise how all States Parties have performed the two Covenants.
Regarding State reports, Article 40 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Articles 16 & 17 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights respectively oblige States Parties to submit reports to the said committees on the measures they have adopted which give effect to the rights recognized by the two Covenants and on the progress made in the enjoyment of those rights. States Parties shall submit their first reports within 1 year of the entry into force of each Covenant, referred to as First Reports, which shall contain all substantive rights under the two Covenants; thereafter, States Parties shall submit Regular Reports within the said time limits under the two Covenants (4 years under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and 5 years under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), which shall contain the significant progress achieved by such states in protecting human rights after the previous reports and state the subsequent developments of concluding observations made by the said committees in reviewing the previous reports submitted by such States.
Regarding the structure and contents of the common core documents and all treaty-specific documents, the UN Compliation of guidelines on the form and content of reports to be submitted by States parties to the international human rights traties (hereinafter referred to as the Writing Guidelines) shall apply and States Parties shall submit reports as per the Writing Guidelines.
In addition, as to State reports submitted by States Parties, NGOs may submit parallel reports (also known as shadow reports) to state, for reference to treaty bodies, how the governments of such states have actually exercised all rights protected under the two Covenants.
Compliation of guidelines on the form and content of reports to be submitted by States parties to the international human rights traties