INTD 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Religious Intolerance, International Criminal Court, Universal Declaration Of Human Rights
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16 Dec 2012
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Lecture 13: Human Rights Implementation and
Enforcement
12/16/12 9:22 AM
The enforcement of human rights standards is very difficult.
How do we enforce these standards?
When a country ratifies a convention, the first thing a country must do is
implement it in their country first.
• Make it a law
• Enforce it at home
• Institutions
• Problem: sometimes they are phony and never disagree with the
government in power
1993: Paris Principles
• set standards for human right institutions and commissions at the
national level
• human rights commission must be independent, have the ability to
receive complaints
Enforcement Internationally
• Can’t enforce, but can embarrass or shame a country
• International Criminal Court can though
• Charter Based: Institutions which flow from the charter of the
united nations, based on articles within the UN charter which allow
them to set up institutions
o General Assembly, Third Committee, Security Council,
Secretary General
o Specific: UN Human Rights Council, sub-committee for the
protection and enforcement of human rights, special raptors
• Treaty Based: set up under the individual human rights treaties
o All conventions have articles within them stating under this
commission there will be a committee set up
o Attempt to enforce with respect to the states parties to the
convention
• Commission on Human Rights: drafted the UDHR, 1946-2006,
replaced by UN Human Rights Council ! attempt at reform
o Needed reform: had 53 members who were appointed to the
commission for 3 years; became dysfunctional (east//west
conflict)
o Things that worked well
" 15-0-3 resolutions: allowed private individuals to make
complaints to the commission
(complaints=communications)
" Special Rapporteur: appointed to look into (thematic or
country Rapporteurs) specific things; can go anywhere
in the world to investigate on the spot an issue
# Religious intolerance
# Child
• UN Human Rights Council
o Smaller than the commission, 47 members
o Appointed for 3 years, 2 terms max.
o Elected by secret ballot by the general assembly (unlike the
commission who were elected by ECOSOC not by secret
ballot)
o Had to sign a written commitment to Human Rights
o Universal Periodic Review: every member of the UN had to
come up to the HR Council has to come up for review once
every 3 to 4 years
International Criminal Court
• Genocide
• War crime
• Crimes against humanity
• Countries that ratify agree to try and arrest an accused individual if
they are in their country
• Rejected the death penalty
• Headquartered in the Hague
Enforcement in States
• Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: a way of dealing with crimes
committed during national wars
o South Africa following the Apartheid
o Argentina after the War
o Chile
o East Germany
o If someone admitted to their crime, and showed that they
were sincerely sorry for it, they could be let off