UN Launches Database of Cases by Expert Committees on Human Rights

LINK TO DATABASE
The database was developed using data from the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) of Utrecht University School of Law. Since the mid-1990s, the SIM had developed a comprehensive record on the jurisprudence stemming from the decisions by four Treaty Bodies on complaints brought by individuals.

Over 20 years, academics compiled and indexed Treaty Bodies’ case law, making the SIM database the most authoritative online resource on this.

Due to budget restrictions, the SIM stopped updating the database  from 1 January 2014 and took it offline on 1 January 2015. However, the SIM offered its data free of charge to the UN Human Rights Office….

…The database contains case law indexed by various categories, including State, date, subject and keywords, which can all be used as search criteria. Users can submit their comments on the functioning of the database as part of ongoing efforts to improve it.

* The Committees that can receive and consider individual complaints are:

Human Rights Committee (CCPR)
Committee against Torture (CAT)
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED)
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)
Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)