United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures of the Commission on Human Rights--Complementarity or Competition?

There are two broad clusters of United Nations human rights machinery: those set up under international human rights treaties (treaty bodies) and those established by the UN Commission on Human Rights (special procedures). They are compared and contrasted, in terms of their potential for duplication and the cooperation or competition attendant on it. The two clusters are distinguished from the perspective of their implicit purposes (mainly multilateral for special procedures, mainly bilateral for treaty bodies) and working methods (examined in terms of general country work, case-specific work, and general overview activity). The incidence of direct cooperation is also addressed. The article concludes that the possibilities of duplication are not as numerous as might be expected, they are generally avoidable or can be accommodated administratively where they exist and that, on balance, the clusters perform complementary functions.