Individual human rights grievances heard at United Nations.

• Position: Includes related article

More people than ever are now writing to the United Nations to allege that their human rights have been violated.

As a result, the Human Rights Committee faces a 400 per cent increase in its work-load at a moment when the Organization's financial crisis will probably deny it the resources needed to deal with those grievances.

The situation was discussed in Geneva (11-29 July) at a session of the Committee mostly devoted to scrutinizing human rights in Barbados, Belgium, Colombia, Ecuador and Japan. The watchdog body makes sure that States parties apply the 1976 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

As usual, a tough questioning of government representatives by the Committee's 18 experts characterized the session. The experts had previously analysed the human rights reports submitted by each of the countries.

In closed meetings, the experts led by Chairman Julio Prado Vallejo (Ecuador) also reviewed the confidential communications sent by individuals who claimed to be victims of human...