“…It is difficult to argue that UN member states are less prone to human rights abuses because of the work of, for example, the UNHRC; but, what is certain is that the wide range of human rights 'instruments' -mainly the nine conventions but also the declarations and 'optional protocols' (treaty additions, largely for procedures of inclusion or exemption) -provide an effective and reflexive sphere to develop international consensus (Lee and Lee, 2010). The condition of consensus can be understood as discourse, for UN treatises function as semantic authorities (establish the definition of terms), epistemic frameworks (facilitate the process of making a situation intelligible to a rights-based judgement, or a rights-based analysis), an appending mechanism for cognate legal terms (such as selfdetermination, discrimination, freedom and enjoyment) and further provide fields of eligible scrutiny (from practices of slavery, servitude, forced labour, to press or media communications, marriage, family and youth, to statelessness, asylum and refugees) (Ghai, and Cottrell, 2004;Leckie, Gallagher, 2006;Senyonjo, 2009;Riedel, Giacca, and Golay, 2014;Schmid, 2015 ).…”