What the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is and how it works

The Working Group is a panel of five independent experts set up by the UN in 1991 to examine cases of deprivation of liberty that may be arbitrary.

The Working Group was established in 1991 by the UN Commission on Human Rights. It has five independent experts from different regions and meets three times a year in Geneva.¹
OHCHR's mandate page, read on 28 October 2026, says the Human Rights Council most recently extended the mandate by resolution 51/8 of 6 October 2022, for three years.^1,3
It works through urgent appeals and communications to governments, a regular procedure for individual complaints that ends in an opinion, and country visits.¹
OHCHR describes communications as usually coming from the individuals concerned, their families or their representatives, says Governments and intergovernmental organisations may also submit them, and says local remedies need not be exhausted first.²
OHCHR describes urgent appeals as humanitarian in character and says they do not prejudge the Working Group's final assessment of a case.²
Country visits take place only on the invitation of the Government concerned.²

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