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The treaty body system has had significant influence on the enjoyment of human rights across the globe, and I believe that this influence is increasing. At the same time, the system has also grown exponentially in recent years, today comprising 10 treaty bodies and 172 experts. While this growth holds great potential, it has not been matched with a commensurate increase in the human and financial resources that are indispensable for adequately supporting the system.

The International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance [text] was signed [JURIST report] in 2007 by at least 57 countries, but has not been ratified by the required 20 to take effect. In August the UN called for all states to end [JURIST report] the "heinous crime" of enforced or involuntary disappearances. Enforced disappearances refers to the practice of placing people in secret detentions for weeks or months without ever being brought before a judge. Some victims of the practice say they were tortured during their detainment.

The case law recognizes that the right to liberty extends beyond physical liberty to the right to make individual choices that go to the core of personal autonomy. At some point, this concept of liberty must meld with the concept of security of the person, which also rests on the principle of personal autonomy. ... The decision to engage in a particular commercial activity is not akin to the kind of decisions that have been characterized as so fundamentally and inherently personal and private as to fall under the right to liberty. To accept such a submission [that personal life choices include the decision to engage in prostitution] would be to read into a constitutional protection what are economic or commercial decisions.

In June the Ontario Court of Appeal extended a stay previously extended in December 2010 of a lower court decision [JURIST reports] striking down laws banning prostitution-related activities. In March 2011 the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to review a BC Court of Appeal [official website] decision allowing a challenge to the country's anti-prostitution laws. In 2007 the Sex Professional of Canada [advocacy website] initiated an application [JURIST report] with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice [official website] challenging the three provisions on the grounds that they are inconsistent with the Charter. The challenge came on the heels of the trial of Robert Pickton [CBC case backgrounder], who was accused of murdering 26 women [indictment text], mostly prostitutes, in the Vancouver area in the 1990s. Pickton was convicted of six counts of murder [Globe and Mail report] in late 2007.

The rights of same-sex couples have been an ongoing issue across Europe. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] ruled this month that the right of a person in a same-sex partnership to adopt his or her partner's child is not protected [JURIST report] by the European Convention on Human Rights [text, PDF]. The case involved a French woman who was denied her request to adopt her civil partner's child, who was conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). She argued the adoption denial violated articles 8 and 14 of the Convention on Human Rights, which protect against invasion of family privacy and discrimination, respectively. In its decision, the court found that the denial did not discriminate against same-sex couples, because opposite sex couples in civil partnerships are equally denied a right to adoption.

In January, the court granted certiorari [JURIST report] in Florida v. Jardines [docket, cert. petition, PDF] to determine whether the use of a drug-sniffing dog at the front door of a house is a search under the Fourth Amendment requiring probable cause. The Supreme Court of Florida ruled [opinion, PDF] in April that the "sniff test" was a search under the Fourth Amendment and required probable cause, not reasonable suspicion.

Concerning the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and in the Occupied Syrian Golan, the Council demanded that Israel cease all of its settlement activities, condemned the firing of rockets against Israeli civilian areas and called upon Israel to cease prolonged closures and economic and movement restrictions, including those amounting to a blockade on the Gaza Strip.

Israel has faced criticism for its treatment of the Palestinian people. Last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] urged Israel [JURIST report] to change its policies that forbid Palestinians from traveling through and living in Gaza and the West Bank. The report describes the policy that causes separation within Palestinian families since some are trapped inside Israel while their family members are forbidden from entering. In January, the Israeli Supreme Court [official website] upheld [JURIST report] a law that prevents Palestinians who marry Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship.

Approximately 400 individuals are currently on trial in connection with the alleged 2009 Ergenekon plot. The group allegedly planned to assassinate prominent members of Turkey's Christian and Jewish minority groups, blame Islamic terrorists for the deaths and use this to delegitimize the ruling AKP. Earlier this month, an Istanbul court ordered four Turkish journalists to be released [JURIST report] from prison while they wait for their trial to resume. Journalists Ahmet Sik, Nedim Sener, Coskun Musluk and Sait Cakir were arrested in March 2011 and accused of involvement in Ergenekon. Critics of the Islam-rooted AKP ruling party contend that the Ergenekon investigation is intended to silence the party's opponents and impose Islamic principles [JURIST report], but the government denies any such charges.

Zimbabwe has faced criticism from the international community for human rights violations, particularly within the diamond industry. In August the BBC reported that Zimbabwe security forces are running illegal mining camps [JURIST report] in the country's Marange area where recruited civilian workers are regularly tortured and forced into labor. According to the report, workers are subject to mauling by dogs, multiple beatings and rape. The camps, one of which allegedly has ties to a personal friend of Zimbabwean Mugabe, were reported to have been operating for three years. In May 2011 Zimbabwe's High Court in Harare ordered the release of six prisoners [JURIST report] accused of plotting to overthrow Zimbabwe's president. The former army officers have been in prison since 2007 after being accused of planning to violently topple Mugabe and replace him with the country's defense minister, Emerson Mnangagwa.