Introduction to
International Human Rights
What are human rights?
Pre- WWII: IHL, slavery, ILO and labour
WWII "shocked the conscience" of mankind
War Crimes Tribunals
UN Charter 1945: Articles 1, 55, 56
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948
Treaties
Custom
Sources of IHRL
- Treaties bind States parties
- multilateral, bilateral
- signature, ratification, accession
State practice
Opinio juris
Persistent objector rule
Jus Cogens
Article 2(1) ICCPR
Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognised in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind such as race, colour, sex. language, religion, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status.
Article 2(1) ICESCR
Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures
International Court of Justice
Regional human rights courts
Human rights treaty bodies and quasi-judicial bodies
Political bodies (eg UNGA, Security Council, Human Rights Council)
Customary human rights?
- the entire UDHR? (Sohn)
- more discrete list (prohibitions on genocide, torture, apartheid, slavery, prolonged arbitrary detention, arbitrary execution, grave war crimes, crimes against humanity, right of colonial peoples to self determination)
- ESC rights: Millenium Development Goals?
Human Rights Bodies
Custom
Regional Treaties
UN Human Rights Treaties
European Convention on Human Rights 1951
American Convention on Human Rights 1969
African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights 1981
Arab Charter on Human Rights 2004
(nothing in Asia Pacific)
Treaties
Declarations
UDHR
Sarah Joseph
Emergence of IHRL
Generations of Rights
CP Rights
International Human
Rights Law
ESC Rights
Third generation rights
FOCUS OF TRADITIONAL INTERNATIONAL LAW
- collective rights
- right to self determination
- right to development
- right to a clean environment?