Creation, Institutionalization, and Development of Public and Confidential Special Procedures

Author(s):  
Elvira Domínguez-Redondo

The history of how Special Procedures were first envisaged, considered, mooted, negotiated, and created impacted the evolution of the internationalization of human rights under the auspices of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The trajectory of these mechanisms provides key insights into both the overall direction and the conduct of politics concerning not only human rights but also development and issues concerned with peace and security at the United Nations. They correspondingly serve as a backdrop to many contemporary global concerns in how they are articulated, defended, and responded to by multilateral organizations. This chapter outlines the key events leading to the birth of the first public and confidential Special Procedures as a positive outcome of what was a highly politicized process. The first section explains the rationale underpinning the polar change of direction of the Commission on Human Rights, from a position where it initially denied its own competence to address human rights violations, to its decision to create subsidiary fact-finding bodies with exactly such purpose. The ad hoc nature of their establishment—from which their derive their denomination as “Special”—against political realities of the time led to a non-linear history that explains many of their current features.

Author(s):  
Михаил Елизаров

Born out of the ashes of the Second World War, the United Nations has made a major contribution to maintain international peace and security. Based on common goals, shared burdens and expenses, responsibility and accountability, the UN helped to reduce the risk of a repetition of a Word War, to reduce hunger and poverty, and promote human rights. But today, the legitimacy and credibility of the UN have been seriously undermined by the desire of some countries to act alone, abandoning multilateralism. So, do we need the UN today?


2013 ◽  
pp. 667-681
Author(s):  
Bojan Milisavljevic

The paper deals with the issue of the diplomatic protection in international law and its development through the history of the international community. In this sense, the author investigates the practice of states regarding the application of diplomatic protection and the steps taken by the International Law Commission of the United Nations on the codification of this area. In 2004 International Law Commission adopted at first reading a full set of draft articles. In this paper is presented judicial practice, especially of the International Court of Justice, in the field of diplomatic protection in order to evaluate whether the approach of the Court to diplomatic protection has become more human-rights oriented in the last few years. Author presents the development of customary law rules relating to diplomatic protection and its transition into a whole system of rules through the work of the International Law Commission. In this sense, these are the basic stages in the codification of rules on diplomatic protection and the United Nations contribution to the protection of the rights of foreign nationals. This article points the development of universal and regional mechanisms to protect human rights and highlights the impact of those mechanisms on traditional measures of diplomatic protection.


Author(s):  
Rebecca Adami

Epistemic injustice in human rights education (HRE) can be found in a colonial historical trajectory of human rights that rests on accounts of western agency only. Such narratives overshadow the legacy of Indian and Pakistani freedom fighters and Latin American feminists who negotiated human rights against colonial, patriarchal and racist discourses after the Second World War. Without their contribution a United Nations (UN) rights concept risked being limited to a western trajectory of the ‘Rights of Man’ that represents a monistic universalism. The paper revisits the history of the United Nations, unearthing historical counternarratives of what a pluralistic universalism of human rights means by adding knowledge about postcolonial feminist subjects who spoke of a positive conception that could reduce injustice.


2019 ◽  
pp. 346-374
Author(s):  
Gleider Hernández

This chapter looks at the use of force and collective security. Today, the United Nations Charter embodies the indispensable principles of international law on the use of force. These include the prohibition on the unilateral use of force found in Article 2(4), and the recognition of the inherent right of all States to use force in self-defence found in Article 51. Finally, under Chapter VII, a collective security system centred upon the Security Council was established for the maintenance of international peace and security. A key debate over the scope of Article 2(4) is whether a new exception has been recognized which would allow the use of force motivated by humanitarian considerations. It is argued that these ‘humanitarian interventions’ would allow a State to use force to protect people in another State from gross and systematic human rights violations when the target State is unwilling or unable to act.


Author(s):  
Kanter Arlene

This chapter examines Article 35 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which sets out the requirements for reporting by states parties to the CRPD Committee. It begins with an overview of the background and travaux préparatoires of Article 35. Although the reporting requirements were discussed at several sessions of the Ad Hoc Committee, it was not until the sixth session, in August of 2005, when the Committee considered the substantive proposals related to Article 35. The following sections of the chapter discuss each paragraph of Article 35, including what constitutes a ‘comprehensive’ country report, as required under Article 35(4). The final section compares the language of Article 35 with the reporting requirements of other human rights treaties, followed by a conclusion.


2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 217-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarina Månsson

AbstractWhile it has been claimed that no subject matter has been referred to as frequently in the United Nations (UN) Charter as human rights, a close analysis of its traveaux préparatoires reveals that it contains but a fragment of what was actually proposed during the drafting of the Charter in 1945. This article presents and analyses these 'lost proposals', particularly those seeking strong references to human rights, international law and justice in the Charter's preamble and chapters on the purposes and principles of the UN. Presented by smaller states, they include suggestions that respect for and protection of human rights constitutes a principle of the UN and that the maintenance of peace and security is conditioned on adherence to international law. It concludes that UN peacemakers of today struggle with the same conundrum as the drafters of the UN Charter 60 ago: "What comes first, justice or peace?"


2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Bjerre Christensen

Europe has a strong interest in and a history of assisting Iran in controlling inflows of drugs from Afghanistan. But due to Iran's increasing use of the death penalty in drug trafficking cases, Europe has terminated its cooperation. Based on interviews with Iranian policy-makers and representatives of both human rights organizations and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), this article presents Denmark's withdrawal of drug control funding in 2013 as a case study, analyzing the dilemmas and trajectories of joint Iranian-European drug diplomacy and the prospects for reengagement following the nuclear agreement.


1951 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-349

The twelfth session of the Economic and Social Council, which opened in February 20, 1950, in Santiago, Chile, represented the first meeting of a major United Nations organ in Latin America. Its agenda of some 35 items included several new topics for discussion, among them consideration of the General Assembly's policy decisions on the draft Covenant on Human Rights and measures for its implementation, the question of relief and rehabilitation for Korea, and possible emergency action by the Council and the specialized agencies to assist in the maintenance of international peace and security.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-218
Author(s):  
Jessica Priscilla Suri

AbstractThe United Nations Security Council (SC) holds the primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security as stipulated in Article 24 of the United Nations Charter (UN Charter). The emergence of international terrorism as a threat to international peace and security encourages the SC to impose sanctions in the form of assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo towards targeted individuals through the SC Resolutions on Taliban, Al-Qaida and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). However, the implementation of UN targeted sanctions towards individuals has been violating the targeted individual’s human rights to property, rights of movement, rights to privacy, honor and reputation, and also the rights to a fair trial. This article will explain about the legitimation of the SC Resolutions in imposing sanction towards an individual, and the obligation of UN member states towards the SC resolution that imposes sanctions against its citizen. The violations of human rights stemming from the implementation of SC Resolutions on sanction towards individuals indicate that the resolutions have been adopted beyond the limits of international law. Therefore this condition makes the resolutions lost its legitimacy under international law. In accordance with Article 25 and 103 of the UN Charter, all member states have an obligation to accept, carry on and give priority to the obligation originating from the SC Resolution including to implement the sanction measures towards individuals. Nevertheless, member states must accommodate and harmonize its obligations in respecting, protecting and fulfilling all the individuals’ rights who are targeted by the SC along with its obligation to the SC Resolutions. Keywords: Human Rights, Sanction towards Individuals, United Nations Security Council.AbstrakDewan Keamanan Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa (DK) memiliki tanggungjawab utama untuk menjaga perdamaian dan keamanan internasional berdasarkan Pasal 24 Piagam PBB. Munculnya terorisme internasional sebagai ancaman terhadap perdamaian dan keamanan internasional mendorong DK untuk menjatuhkan sanksi berupa pembekuan aset, pelarangan perjalanan serta embargo senjata kepada individu yang ditargetkan melalui rezim Resolusi Taliban, Al-Qaida dan Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Dalam penerapannya penjatuhan sanksi tersebut menimbulkan pelanggaran Hak Asasi Manusia (HAM) yaitu hak terhadap properti, hak kebebasan berpindah, hak atas privasi, kehormatan dan reputasi serta hak atas proses pengadilan yang adil. Pelanggaran HAM tersebut memunculkan tujuan dilakukannya penulisan artikel ini yaitu untuk menunjukan mengenai legitimasi resolusi DK yang menjatuhkan sanksi kepada individu, serta memaparkan mengenai kewajiban negara anggota PBB terhadap resolusi DK yang menjatuhkan sanksi kepada warga negaranya. Pelanggaran HAM yang disebabkan oleh penerapan penjatuhan sanksi terhadap individu mengindikasikan bahwa resolusi yang mendasari penjatuhan sanksi tersebut diadopsi dengan melampaui batasan-batasan penjatuhan sanksi DK dan telah kehilangan legitimasinya menurut hukum internasional. Sehingga meskipun negara memiliki kewajiban berdasarkan Pasal 25 dan 103 Piagam PBB untuk tetap menerima, melaksanakan dan mengutamakan kewajibannya berdasarkan Resolusi DK yang menjatuhkan sanksi terhadap individu, negara tetap harus mengakomodir dan mengharmonisasikan kewajibannya dalam menghormati, melindungi dan memenuhi HAM individu yang dijatuhkan sanksi saat melaksanakan kewajibannya yang berasal dari Resolusi DK. Kata Kunci: Dewan Keamanan Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa, Hak Asasi Manusia, Sanksi terhadap Individu


Author(s):  
Nizam Safaraz

Abstract             Every human being has the rights to be protected from discrimination by any party, especially the act of gross human rights violations. In order to prevent this, the Security Council has a function to secure international peace and security from threats to international peace. One of the case that is becoming an international concern is the human rights violations on Rohingya by Myanmar Military. In its implementation, the UN Security Council can intervene a country known to violate human rights of its people, however the Security Council's intervention caused a controversy that questioned the validity of the intervention by Security Council. Thus, the purpose of this research is to find out whether the situation in Myanmar is valid for the UN Security Council to carry out humanitarian interventions. Accordingly, this research also analyzes legal measures by the UN Security Council in dealing with human rights violations in Myanmar. Keyword: Human Rights, Humanitarian Intervention, Rohingya, UN Security Council


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