State reports are not being submitted on time

The chronic lateness of most reporting from states continues to be a problem in the UN human rights treaty system.  Of 45 reports submitted so far in 2018, only 7 were submitted on time (here I treat any report submitted no more than 2 months late to be "on time" for these purposes).

The average delay is 31.7 months. However, if you remove the three (3) worst offenders (22 years, 18 years and 10.5 years, respectively), the average drops down to 19.1 months late.

Even the simplified reporting category suffers from late filing (the so-called LOIPR option).  Offering the simplified reporting option was supposed to be a way to help states improve their reporting compliancy. Yet only 2 of 13 LOIPR reports submitted so far in 2018 have been submitted on time (again, allowing a grace period of 2 months to be equivalent to "on time").

Here is a table showing the specific deadlines and reports received.

	Country	Treaty	Report type	when due	submitted	how late (months)
1	Greece	CAT	LOIPR	01/06/2016	22/01/2018	19
2	Uzbekistan	CAT	standard	23/11/2017	16/01/2018	2
3	Benin	CAT	LOIPR	30/12/2011	27/12/2017	72
4	UK	CAT	LOIPR	31/05/2017	15/11/2017	6
5	Mauritania	CCPR	standard	01/11/2017	22/11/2017	0
6	Liechtenstein	CEDAW	LOIPR	01/02/2015	01/02/2018	36
7	Qatar	CEDAW	standard	01/02/2018	31/01/2018	0
8	Guatemala	CERD	standard	20/12/2017	13/12/2017	0
9	Mexico	CAT	LOIPR	23/11/2016	01/11/2017	12
10	Cape Verde	CEDAW	standard	01/07/2017	09/02/2018	7
11	Burkina Faso	CAT	LOIPR	22/11/2017	08/02/2018	3
12	Zambia	CERD	standard	05/03/2009	14/02/2018	27
13	Poland	CAT	LOIPR	22/11/2017	20/02/2018	3
14	Poland	CERD	standard	04/01/2018	09/03/2018	0
15	Bahrain	CEDAW	standard	01/02/2018	01/03/2018	0
16	Italy	CRC	standard	04/04/2017	05/07/2017	3
17	El Salvador	CRC	standard	03/01/2016	23/01/2018	24
18	Czech Republic	CRC OPSC	initial	26/09/2015	23/08/2017	23
19	Niger	CCPR	standard	31/03/1994	15/01/2018	286
20	Mozambique	CEDAW	standard	21/05/2010	22/03/2018	70
21	Palestine	CERD	initial	02/05/2017	21/03/2018	10
22	Chile	CERD	standard	31/08/2016	13/03/2018	19
23	Togo	CAT	LOIPR	23/11/2016	11/04/2018	17
24	Guyana	CEDAW	standard	01/07/2016	17/04/2018	21
25	Cote d'Ivoire	CEDAW	standard	01/10/2015	09/03/2018	29
26	Bosnia and Herzegovina	CEDAW	standard	07/07/2017	19/04/2018	10
27	Czech Republic	CERD	standard	01/01/2018	30/04/2018	4
28	DRC	CEDAW	standard	01/07/2017	12/01/2018	6
29	Lithuania	CERD	standard	09/01/2018	01/02/2018	0
30	Andorra	CERD	initial	21/10/2007	05/02/2018	123
31	Andorra	CEDAW	standard	01/10/2017	31/05/2018	8
32	Kazakhstan	CEDAW	standard	01/02/2018	01/06/2018	4
33	Poland	CAT	LOIPR	22/11/2017	20/02/2018	3
34	Zambia	CERD	standard	05/03/2009	14/02/2018	72
35	Mexico	CCPR	LOIPR	30/03/2014	11/06/2018	48
36	Cambodia	CEDAW	standard	01/10/2017	12/06/2018	9
37	Seychelles	CEDAW	standard	01/10/2017	14/06/2018	9
38	El Salvador	CERD	standard	20/12/2017	13/06/2018	6
39	Mauritius	CEDAW	LOIPR	01/10/2015	19/06/2018	32
40	Ghana	CRPD	initial	31/08/2014	05/06/2018	46
41	Jamaica	CRPD	initial	03/06/2010	25/06/2018	72
42	Latvia	CAT	LOIPR	22/11/2017	12/06/2018	7
43	Niger	CAT	initial	03/11/1999	07/06/2018	213
44	Portugal	CAT	LOIPR	22/11/2017	07/06/2018	7
45	UAE	CAT	initial	19/08/2013	20/06/2018	58

Notes to table: 

1. The yellow highlighted figures are the 3 "outliers" that I excluded in order to arrive at the average of 19.1 months lateness.  If those 3 are not excluded, the average total becomes 31.7 months late.

2. The two LOIPR reports that are shaded "green" were submitted essentially on time, but the prior report deadline that had been missed and replaced by the LOIPR report was late as noted -- 36 months and 32 months late, respectively. 

3. The seven (7) beige colored items were essentially on time. 

4. This data comes from the OHCHR databases but there is often a lag in the databases, so many reports may have in fact been received, but not noted yet. Nonetheless this is a pretty good snapshot of the current state of play. 

Conclusion

States need to work harder to file their reports to the treaty bodies on time.  If all reports were submitted on time, the system would receive approximately 300 reports per year, but instead it is receiving only about a third of that -- about 130 reports per year (this year, unless the pace picks up during the 2nd half of the year or there is a lag in reporting documents received into the UN databases that will soon be adjusted, it would seem that there will only be about 90 reports submitted).  But even these figures are worse than they seem -- as pointed out above, most of the reports actually received are themselves chronically late, so they do not represent current reports submitted on the current deadlines.