Reconciling the Dual-Faceted Mandates of Quasi-Judicial Human Rights Bodies: the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s Prima Facie Approach to Evidence

Focusing on evidentiary approaches, this article examines the burdens and standards of proof applied at United Nations quasi-judicial international human rights bodies. These bodies have dual-faceted mandates, combining legal and human rights traditions and imperatives. However, they diverge in their approach to evidence. Using the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention as a comparative point of reference, this article argues that the prima facie approach developed over the Working Group’s 30 years of jurisprudence provides an appropriately flexible and conceptually coherent means of accommodating the human rights and the judicial mandates. Nonetheless, the Working Group’s prima facie approach requires lexiconic and taxonomical tightening, and clarification of the standard of proof it applies. Comparing the approaches taken by other bodies, this article looks to build the impetus towards consistency among quasi-judicial human rights bodies. To this end, it reviews proposals such as wholesale reversals of burdens of proof onto Governments, highlighting the drawbacks of such approaches and the risk they would introduce further uncertainty for parties to proceedings, may actually result in higher burdens for claimants, and would potentially flood the Working Group and other institutions with unsubstantiated claims.