A midlife crisis for the treaty-based human rights system?

A single short document of 30 articles”—the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights—“has probably had more impact on mankind than any other document in modern history,” said Navi Pillay, then United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in 2008. Half a century ago, in December 1966, the United Nations formally translated the rhetorical promises from that declaration into legally binding obligations with the adoption of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Since then, global efforts to monitor and track human rights violations have grown exponentially.