III. DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS TREATY SYSTEM Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted over 60 years ago, and the drafting of the International Bill of Human Rights (the Universal Declaration plus the two Covenants) was completed by 1966, the international human rights treaty system has continued to grow with the adoption of new instruments and the creation of new treaty bodies. The broad range of instruments and bodies has ensured greater promotion and protection of human rights in a range of specific areas of concern to the international community, but has also presented the system with an important challenge: how best to ensure that the different elements of the expanding system work effectively together? A. The expansion of the human rights treaty system and the need for strengthening it Since 2004, the human rights treaty body system has almost doubled in size with the addition of four new treaty bodies and three new optional protocols for individual complaints, of which one is already in force. There have been increases in the membership of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families since the beginning of 2010 and of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture from January 2011, bringing the total number of treaty body experts to 172 (up from 125 at the end of 2009). Meeting time has also been on the rise. Among the most recent developments is the entry into force of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance on 23 December 2010. In addition, and also as a positive side effect of the new universal periodic review (UPR), States have increased ratification and reporting under international human rights treaties. For instance, in 2010, the nine human rights treaty bodies with a reporting procedure covered over 130 country reviews and examined over 100 individual complaints. This growth has prompted the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to request all stakeholders to rethink the future of treaty bodies and to come up with innovative and creative ideas to strengthen the system. The treaty bodies have been successful in pursuing their mandates, in particular by engaging States in open and frank discussion on the problems of realizing human rights through the reporting process. Nevertheless, until fairly recently, each treaty body tended to approach its work independently of the others, even though in many respects their activities overlap. Because the 40