Law
International Human Rights
International human rights refer to the fundamental rights and freedoms that are universally recognized and protected by international law. These rights encompass civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, and are enshrined in various international treaties and conventions. They are intended to ensure the dignity, equality, and well-being of all individuals, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, religion, or other characteristics.
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12 Key excerpts on "International Human Rights"
eBook - PDF- Hurst Hannum(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
Chapter 1 A n Overview of International Human Rights Law Richard B. Bilder The International Human Rights movement is based on the concept that every nation has an obligation to respect the human rights of its citizens and that other nations and the international community have a right, and responsibility, to protest if states do not adhere to this obligation. International Human Rights law consists of the body of in-ternational rules, procedures, and institutions developed to imple-ment this concept and to promote respect for human rights in all countries on a worldwide basis. While International Human Rights law focuses on international rules, procedures, and institutions, it typically requires at least some knowl-edge of and sensitivity to the relevant domestic law of countries with which the practitioner is concerned. In particular, one must be aware of national laws regarding the implementation of treaties and other international obligations, the conduct of foreign relations, and the protection accorded by domestic law to human rights. Indeed, since international law is generally applicable only to states and does not normally create rights directly enforceable by individuals in national courts, International Human Rights law can be made most effective only if each state makes these rules part of its own domestic legal system. Many International Human Rights activities are directed at en-couraging countries to incorporate International Human Rights stan-dards into their own internal legal order in this way. Thus, the work of International Human Rights lawyers and national human rights (or civil rights) lawyers is closely related and often overlaps. In practice, the differences between International Human Rights and national civil rights often lie more in emphasis than substance. Concern for human rights rarely begins or ends at any single nation's boundaries, and effective action to protect and promote human rights,
No longer available |Learn more- (Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- The English Press(Publisher)
________________________ WORLD TECHNOLOGIES ________________________ Chapter-4 International Human Rights Law International Human Rights law refers to the body of International Law designed to promote & protect human rights at the international, regional and domestic levels. As a form of international law, International Human Rights law is primarily made up of treaties, agreements between states intended to have binding legal effect between the parties that have agreed to them; and customary international law, rules of law derived from the consistent conduct of states acting out of the belief that the law required them to act that way. Other International Human Rights instruments while not legally binding contribute to the implementation, understanding and development of International Human Rights law and have been recognised as a source of political obligation. Enforcement of International Human Rights Law can occur on either a Domestic, Regional or International Level. States that ratify human rights treaties commit themselves to respecting those rights and ensuring that their domestic law is compatible with international legislation. When Domestic Law fails to provide a remedy for human rights abuses parties may be able to resort to regional or international mechanisms for enforcing human rights. International Human Rights law is closely related to, but distinct from International Humanitarian Law. Similar, because the substantive norms they contain are often similar or related - for example both provide a protection from torture. Distinct because they are regulated by legally distinct frameworks and usually operate in different contexts and regulate different relationships. Generally, human rights are understood to regulate the relationship between states and individuals in the context of ordinary life.
eBook - PDFThe Politics of Protection
The Limits of Humanitarian Action
- Elizabeth G. Ferris(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Brookings Institution Press(Publisher)
It sets out basic rights to be protected, including the right to life, liberty, and security of persons; freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; and the right to a fair trial, to seek and enjoy asylum, to an adequate standard of living, to education, to work, and so forth. Since then, in addition to the central human rights conventions upholding the full gamut of rights for all human beings, many other instruments have been adopted (to varying degrees) on specific rights for specific groups (see box 2-1). Box 2-1. Conventions on Human Rights in General and for Specific Groups Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984) Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954) Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness (1961) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) 44 Human Rights and Protection Human rights law is applicable in all circumstances, including armed conflict. However, in emergencies, states party to certain treaties may excep-tionally and temporarily suspend (derogate) their obligations on certain civil and political rights.
eBook - PDF- Malcolm N. Shaw(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
6 The International Protection of Human Rights THE NATURE OF HUMAN RIGHTS 1 The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on 10 December 1948 emphasises that ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. While there is widespread acceptance of the import- ance of human rights in the international structure, there is considerable confusion as to their precise nature and role in international law. 2 The question of what is meant by a ‘right’ is itself controversial and the subject of intense jurisprudential debate. 3 Some ‘rights’, for example, are intended as immediately enforceable binding commitments, others merely as specifying a possible future pattern of behaviour. 4 The problem of enforcement and sanctions with regard to human rights in inter- national law is another issue which can affect the characterisation of the 1 See e.g. H. Lauterpacht, International Law and Human Rights, London, 1950; The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law (ed. D. Shelton), Oxford, 2013; D. Shelton, Remedies in International Human Rights Law, 3rd ed., Oxford, 2015; International Human Rights Law (ed. D. Moeckli, S. Shah and S. Sivakumaran), 3rd ed., Oxford, 2018; O. de Schutter, International Human Rights Law, 3rd ed., Cambridge, 2019; I. Bantekas and L. Oette, International Human Rights Law and Practice, 3rd ed., Cambridge, 2020; J. Rehman, International Human Rights Law, 2nd ed., London, 2010; P. Daillier, M. Forteau and A. Pellet, Droit International Public, 8th ed., Paris, 2009, p. 723; P.-M. Dupuy and Y. Kerbrat, Droit International Public, 14th ed., Paris, 2018; M. S. McDougal, H. Lasswell and L. C. Chen, Human Rights and World Public Order, New Haven, 1980; Human Rights in International Law (ed. T. Meron), Oxford, 2 vols., 1984; Guide to International Human Rights Practice (ed. H. Hannum), 4th ed., Ardsley, 2004; D.
eBook - PDF- Leanne Weber, Elaine Fishwick, Marinella Marmo(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Red Globe Press(Publisher)
Far from bypassing state sovereignty according to Arendt’s vision, this framework operates within a system of independent sovereign nations, creating an ongo-ing tension between individual and group rights and the rights of states. Chapter 2 provides a basic overview of the current system of International Human Rights law. Additional readings and materials Universal Declaration of Human Rights Available at: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b1udhr.htm. The Origins and Idea of Human Rights 17 Constitution of the United States of America Available at: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Available at: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b2esc.htm. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Available at: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b3ccpr.htm. Cushman, T. (2012) Handbook of Human Rights , Abingdon: Routledge. Dembour, M. (2006), Who Believes in Human Rights? Reflections on the European Convention , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Donnelly, J. (2002) Universal Rights in Theory and Practice , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Douzinas, C. (2000) The End of Human Rights: Critical Legal Thought at the Turn of the Century , Oxford: Hart Publishing. Kalin, W. (2013) ‘ Late modernity: human rights under pressure? ’ Punishment and Society 15(4): 397—411. Locke, J., The Second Treatise of Government (first published 1689). Available as a free download from Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ 7370. Neier, A. (2012) The International Human Rights Movement: A History , Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Nickel, J.W. (1987) Making Sense of Human Rights: Philosophical Reflections on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Osiatynski, W. (2009) Human Rights and Their Limits , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Court case cited Muir v The Queen [2004] HCA 21 (Australia).
eBook - PDFHumanity without Dignity
Moral Equality, Respect, and Human Rights
- Andrea Sangiovanni(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Harvard University Press(Publisher)
To set the stage for the discussion, I will begin by provisionally leaving aside the distinc-tion between “fundamental” and “nonfundamental” rights. This will be picked up again later in Chapter 6. I start therefore with the system of international legal human rights (ILHRs) as an undifferentiated whole. It is uncontroversial that one of the highest-order aims of the ILHR system as it currently operates is to make the protection of a set of indi-vidual moral rights a matter of common concern for the international community. 1 By “international community,” I mean the network of po-litical and legal institutions that operates at the international level and 208 H U M A N I T Y W I T H O U T D I G N I T Y that includes states, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and inter-national organizations. The most important of these institutions is the UN system, which is composed of myriad agencies, committees, com-missions, and associated treaty-based organizations (including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the International Labour Organization). Included are also various judicial and quasi-judicial bodies associated with the UN system, such as the International Court of Justice and the special crim-inal and arbitral tribunals, and UN-based human rights organizations (such as the Human Rights Council and the Convention on the Elimi-nation of All Forms of Discrimination against Women [CEDAW]), as well as NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Finally, flanking these UN-based institutions are also the regional human rights treaties and courts, such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [IACHR], which also play an important role in the ILHR system.
- Adam McBeth(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
When methods for guaranteeing those human entitlements and making their protection legally enforceable were developed in international law, the most practical focal point was the State. However, it is not only the State that is capable of infringing a person’s human rights. Other individuals, corporations, institutions and any other kind of entity can frustrate the realisation of an individual’s human rights, whether by directly inflicting harm or by imposing obstacles to the positive realisation of a particular right. In such circumstances, the frustrating entity can be said to have infringed the person’s human rights. The question of whether such an infringement will also be a violation of human rights law depends on the allocation of the legal obligations to refrain from infringing human rights and to protect a person’s human rights from being infringed. If a legal obligation can be identified on the part of a given actor, a separate question arises as to how best to enforce that obligation. This chapter has attempted to address the first part of this tripartite enquiry by identifying the rights that are guaranteed to all human beings by International Human Rights law. The second and third parts – the identification of corresponding obligations and the options for enforcing such obligations – are addressed in the remaining chapters. Before turning to those questions, it is timely to recall that human rights by their nature are not absolute. Every right is limited to the extent that the enjoy- ment of one right must not infringe the rights of others. 168 For example, the 168 See for example UDHR, above n 1, Art 30. Human rights in international law 41 exercise of one person’s freedom of speech does not extend to a right to infringe another person’s right to privacy or to incite racial or religious hatred.
eBook - PDFInternational Law
Cases and Materials with Australian Perspectives
- Donald Rothwell, Stuart Kaye, Afshin Akhtarkhavari, Ruth Davis(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Indigenous peoples have also criticised the absence of attention to their situation in the human rights canon. The provisions in the International Bill of Rights are not designed to acknowledge the particular claims and disadvantages of minority indigenous groups. For example, International Human Rights law offers little protection to people whose primary allegiance is to their land. The continuing difficulties surrounding the drafting of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples illustrate the limited horizons of the official human rights system. While these criticisms contain much force, the imaginative, transcendent power of human rights claims must be balanced against them. Human rights are a framework for debate over basic values and conceptions of a good society. Rights discourse offers a recognized vocabulary to frame political and social wrongs. Martha Minow has identified problems in denying rights discourse to marginalised groups: ‘I worry about criticising rights and legal language just when they have become available to people who had previously lacked access to them. I worry about those who have, telling those who do not, “you do not need it, you should not want it”’. Rights talk can often seem naïve and unpragmatic and is capable of intense manipulation: however, its power relies on a basic commitment to justice and rightness. Chapter 9 Human rights 539 COSTAS DOUZINAS, ‘The End(s) of Human Rights’ (2002) 26 Melbourne University Law Review 445 (footnotes omitted) [450] A Globalised Human Rights An endless process of international and humanitarian law-making has been put into operation, aimed at protecting people from the putative assertions of their sovereignty. To paraphrase Nietzsche, if God, the source of natural law, is dead, he has been replaced by international law. But there are many problems with these globalised rights. First, this huge enterprise of legislation and codification has become the safest haven of a sui generis positivism.
- Rob Dickinson, Elena Katselli, Colin Murray, Ole W. Pedersen(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
47 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 999 UNTS 171. 48 General Comment No. 29, States of Emergency (Article 4), Human Rights Committee, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.11, 31 August 2001. the rule of law & human rights in international law 139 of restraining force among states. 49 A relevant question to consider is whether the rule of law is associated with democracy. Indeed, one can see that the reconciliation of justice with non-democratic regimes that violate human rights and freedoms is difficult to achieve. 50 Yet again, as argued above, the rule of law is not necessarily linked with what the majority of the population wants, as expressed through democratic procedures. In this context, human rights entail an element of democ- racy: the right of the people to take part in government. However, only to the extent permitted by the rule of law can democracy, in other words the right of the majority, circumvent human rights. 51 The significance of human rights as a concept that is part and parcel of the rule of law is considered next. Human rights and international rule of law Few can actually doubt that the Second World War was a period of great significance: for the devastation that it caused to millions of people, but also for the hope that the postwar era brought. Truly, the years that followed the cessation of hostilities signified a new momentum in the international legal order and brought about ground-breaking develop- ments in relation to the rights of the individual at an international level. Gradually emerging in a traditionally state-dominated legal order as an actor and not merely as an object, the individual begins to be regarded as the holder of international rights and obligations. 52 The principles of absolute state sovereignty, consent and non-interference are challenged by principles of fundamental, universal and inalienable human rights, jus cogens norms and obligations owed to the international community as a whole.
eBook - PDF- Ilias Bantekas, Lutz Oette(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
66 Subsequently, similar political efforts were channelled into calls for the recognition of the right to development. 67 The surrounding debates have brought to the fore different conceptions of rights, in particular concerning the collective nature of human rights. 68 While the legacy of colonialism and the challenges stemming from the decolonisation process still loom large in international law, it is already clear that this process has added important dimensions to the understanding of human rights and the development of International Human Rights law. 1.2.8 The growth of International Human Rights law A series of struggles, advocacy by the International Human Rights movement, the increasing importance of human rights in international relations, a determination to tackle (at least some) persistent problems, and a concerted effort to develop a more coherent system have contributed to the rapid growth of standard-setting since the 1970s, in particular at the UN level. This standard-setting consisted of the adoption of a series of treaties, declarations and other instruments that further developed the normative body of inter- national human rights law. These sources further elaborate specific individual rights already recognised in the UDHR and ICCPR, such as the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punish- ment (CAT) (1984), or govern specific violations not expressly stipulated in the International Bill of Human Rights, such as the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CPED) (2006).
eBook - PDF- Ilias Bantekas, Lutz Oette(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Attempts to institute a New International Economic Order based on greater economic equality and share of resources between states failed in the 1970s. 66 Subsequently, similar political efforts were channelled into calls for the recognition of the right to development. 67 The surrounding debates have brought to the fore different conceptions of rights, in particu-lar concerning the collective nature of human rights. 68 While the legacy of colonialism and the challenges stemming from the decolonisation process still loom large in international law, it is already clear that this process has added important dimensions to the understanding of human rights and the development of International Human Rights law. 1.2.8 The Growth of International Human Rights Law A series of struggles, advocacy by the International Human Rights movement, the increasing importance of human rights in international relations, a deter-mination to tackle (at least some) persistent problems, and a concerted effort to develop a more coherent system have contributed to the rapid growth of standard- setting since the 1970s, in particular at the UN level. This standard-setting con-sisted of the adoption of a series of treaties, declarations and other instruments that further developed the normative body of International Human Rights law. These sources further elaborate specific individual rights already recognised in the UDHR and ICCPR, such as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) (1984), or govern spe-cific violations not expressly stipulated in the International Bill of Human Rights, such as the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CPED) (2006). The increasing awareness of the need to recognise – and provide better protection for – the rights of members 65 See Baxi, above note 9 , 53–5.
- Jean Allain, Siobhán Mullally, Jean Allain, Siobhán Mullally(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
Human Rights Law in the Republic of Ireland – 2008 Liam Thornton university of ulster There continued to be significant engagement with human rights issues by the Irish legislature, government and judiciary in 2008. The strengthening of the human rights of trafficking victims, lesbian, gay and bisexual men and women are worthy points of note. This must be contrasted with the continuing controversies in immigration law, the failure of the Irish Government to legislate so as to protect the rights of transgen-dered persons and the severe financial cutbacks imposed on the Equality Authority and the Irish Human Rights Commission. The number of cases argued before the Irish Courts on issues relating to human rights continues to rise. The judiciary have engaged in human rights disputes in a large number of areas, ranging from criminal law, family law, child law, immigration law, property law and mental health law. The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms into Irish law has had no small part to play in this increase in human rights adjudication before the courts. As can be seen from the range of cases examined below, judicial engage-ment with other International Human Rights law instruments and treaties remains low. Nevertheless, in the area of child law at any rate, the judiciary seems more prepared to at least make reference to international legal instruments in coming to decisions, even if domestic or European human rights law can solve the issue at hand. It remains to be seen whether in future years, judicial reference to unincorporated International Human Rights treaties will expand. Criminal Justice Criminal Justice (Human Trafficking) Act 2008 The Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act 2008, which came into force in May 2008, made the crime of trafficking a specific offence within Irish law. The 2008 Act changed little from the Criminal Justice (Human Trafficking) Bill 2007, which was discussed in last year’s Report.
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