Practice of UN treaty bodies and Thematic UN Special Procedures relevant to the protection of vulnerable groups

This chapter looks at what type of legal protection is available to vulnerable groups and their members as a result of the performance of monitoring functions by bodies established under UN human rights treaties and charged with supervising State parties' compliance with these treaties. It considers whether the practice of the treaty bodies illuminates a definition of vulnerable groups with ensuing legal implications. The chapter introduces the main functions of the Procedures and elucidates their relevance to the protection of vulnerable groups under International Human Rights Law (IHRL). It analyzes reports of these procedures have prepared between 2010 and April 2016 to determine whether their practice sheds light on the notions of vulnerability and vulnerable groups for the purposes of IHRL. The chapter concludes by examining the practice of Thematic UN Special Procedures which focus on the situation of certain groups of persons or phenomena adversely affecting certain groups of individuals.