Acknowledgements

Our thanks go to the European Research Council for having made it possible for this collection of foundational research into the evidentiary regime of UN human rights treaty bodies (UNTBs) to emerge. The book is an output of the ‘DISSECT: Evidence in International Human Rights Adjudication’ Horizon 2020 research project (ERC-AdG-2018-834044), led by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, and hosted by the University of Ghent.

The volume started as a symposium, held in Ghent on 15–16 May 2023. We are grateful to everyone who responded to our call for papers, and to those who accepted our invitation to come to Ghent. Besides the authors of the chapters which follow, this includes Victoria Abut, Parvana Bayramova, Adriana Bones, Wojciech Burek, Ergün Cakal, Frederick Cowell, Susan H. Farbstein, Hilary Gbedemah, Rebecca Gore, Kerem Gülay, Octavian Ichim, Özge Karsu, Louna Monaco, Sabrina Ochoa, Maithili Pai, Jimena Reyes, Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón, Carlos Leonardo Santana Bareño and Emma Várnagy. The symposium benefited from having its panels chaired and discussed by the following members of the DISSECT research team: Anne Heinisch, Ruwadzano Makumbe, Genaro Andrés Manrique Giacomán, Edward Kahuthia Murimi and Emma Várnagy. The symposium would not have been the success it was without the meticulous logistical planning provided by DISSECT’s administrative support team, in the persons of Martine Dewulf and Kristien Van Ingelgem.

With participants hailing from academia and practice, including from UNTB committee membership and litigating experience, the symposium’s exchanges were illuminating throughout. They were open, warm and stimulating. This congenial spirit translated in all paper-givers committing at the end of the symposium to help in shaping collective recommendations. This pledge has become Chapter 11 of this volume.

Turning the symposium into a book required further work. We thank the chapters’ authors for having responded with good grace to our multiple requests for new drafts, further clarifications and additional edits. We also gratefully acknowledge the general support we received from the distinguished members of the DISSECT project’s advisory board.

We are grateful to Cambridge University Press, as well as to the editors of the International Courts and Tribunals Series, for their enthusiastic reception of our book proposal and support during the publication process. We particularly wish to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers’ useful comments and the helpful guidance provided by Natasha Burton and Edgar Mendez. Tiny Vandoorne from the DISSECT administrative team and Vera Wriedt lent invaluable assistance in finalising the manuscript. Finally, had it not been for Zach Woodham agreeing to prepare the index, and then doing it to his characteristically exacting standards, the manuscript would not yet have been ready to be sent to press as we were writing these words in July 2025.