Continuing confusion? The UN Human Rights Committee’s jurisprudence on continuing violations and jurisdiction <i>ratione temporis</i>

Abstract The UN Human Rights Committee’s jurisprudence regarding temporal jurisdiction remains underexplored in the literature. This article critically analyses the Committee’s evolving jurisprudence on jurisdiction ratione temporis and continuing violations, delineating the different concepts and how they are applied by the Committee. It argues that the Committee’s approach not only diverges significantly from general public international law conceptions of continuing violations and related doctrines but also that it does so in a manner that is internally contradictory, inconsistent, and lacking in clarity. It highlights key problems, including a failure to properly distinguish between applicable law and state consent to jurisdiction; conflicting approaches in different cases involving the same or similar questions; and the giving of a multitude of contradictory meanings to essential terms. It offers some suggestions for amendments to the Committee’s approach that would, it is argued, bring greater clarity and coherence to this area.