The Global Initiative on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (GI-ESCR) and the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) have prepared a toolkit to provide guidance to civil organisations on how to work with Human Rights Treaty Bodies (HRTBs) in the context of State review processes.

The materials of this toolkit are available both in English and Spanish.

The toolkit includes a background note, which offers a short overview of the functioning of the reporting procedure before HRTBs, describing its stages and highlighting the opportunities for civil society to provide input. The document also proposes ways to leverage each stage of this process in order to exert pressure on States to address climate change and to seek recommendations that reinforce advocacy messages at the national level, particularly in the context of climate litigation.

The toolkit also includes a guidance note on how to prepare a parallel report to be submitted to a HRTB to impact the assessment of a State's observance of its treaty obligations. The document outlines the process for identifying crucial climate issues for the respective State and emphasising the connections between national climate actions (or lack thereof) and the State's human rights responsibilities. The aim of this guidance note is to empower organisations to present relevant information on climate impacts and policies to pursue country-specific recommendations from HRTBs.

Additionally, each year, GI-ESCR and CIEL release their synthesis note, which reviews and analyses the outputs from HRTBs in relation to the climate emergency. The latest synthesis note reviews the work of HRTBs during 2023.