| Chapter 2: | Investigative Detention and International Human Rights Law |
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Rights Committee to consider complaints (called “communications”) filed by individuals through what is known as the individual communication process.40
All states under consideration in this analysis are party to the ICCPR,41 though, of the three, only France is a party to the optional protocol.42 Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom has ratified it. Individual complaints, therefore, can be brought against France, but not against the United States or the United Kingdom.43
The nature of the HRC and its jurisprudence is not the easiest to ascertain. It is considered neither a judicial nor even a quasi-judicial entity, yet it issues general comments intended to clarify its understanding of the ICCPR and “final views” intended to conclude the individual communication process.44 The Human Rights Committee's decisions, nonetheless, have no binding force―even among parties to the Optional Protocol. Member states are, therefore, not always legally obligated to comply with the committee's findings.45 The question of the direct binding force of the committee's decisions is not, however, the end of the inquiry. Though not binding, the committee's decisions are considered a highly persuasive authority for ICCPR interpretation. This is because the Human Rights Committee is considered the authoritative interpreter of the rights articulated in the ICCPR.46 As such, its decisions and views are given great credence internationally and have a norm-creating property that can serve to create customary international law.47
Unlike France, when ratifying the ICCPR, the United Kingdom accepted the competence of the HRC to hear interstate complaints.49 Likewise, the United States “accept[ed] the competence of the Human Rights Committee to receive and consider communications under article 41 [state-to-state complaints] in which a State Party claims that another State Party