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861 multilateral conventions on Environmental Law, Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and Law of the Sea

Human Rights

According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 'Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.'

Definition of Human Rights
On principle, Human Rights are universal. 'Universal' means that UN Member-States have the duty to promote and protect these rights regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems. Futhermore, Human Rights are inalienable, in the sense that they can not be taken away.
The International Bill of Human Rights set Human Rights treaties up. It includes: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The notion of 'Interdependent and indivisible' means that rights are interrelated, thereby the improvement of one right facilitates advancement of the others, and vice-versa.
In addition, Human Rights are equal and non-discriminatory. This principle prohibits discrimination based on a non-exhaustive list of categories ' such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status '. (Art. 2 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
States take on obligations and duties under International Law to respect, to protect and to fulfil Human Rights. When a State ratifies international treaties, it commits itself to take all necessary actions to implement Human Rights as well as to adopt national rules in compliance with international agreements.

Implementation of Human Rights
There are four mechanisms to strengthen and implement Human Rights: legal, political, diplomatic and civil society instruments. However, the implementation of Human Rights comes primarily under the responsibility of legal and administrative institutions of the State. In addition, Human Rights treaties each contain a specific mechanism for implementation. The main legal instruments are:

UN Conventions require States to submit regular reports on the Human Rights situation in their territories. Nevertheless, these reports have no legal value, but only political reach in order to oblige States to justify their actions to the international community. Several of the Council of Europe's conventions also require States to submit a report.
The European Court of Human Rights provides for an individual right of appeal for the victims of Human Rights violations. A victim can, after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, give an application against one of the High Contracting Party of the rights set forth in the Convention or the protocols thereto (art 34 and 35 of Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms).
' State to State complaint allows a State to lodge an official complaint against another State Party for Human Rights violations '. However, this procedure is only a mediation without the possibility of a binding decision in the case of failure. Although the majority of conventions has ' State to State complaint ' mechanism, States have never used this instrument. Indeed, they want to preserve their foreign relations.
International criminal tribunals are in charge of prosecuting and punishing those responsible for the most serious human rights violations such as genocide. Moreover, there is two international ad hoc tribunals: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda as well as the Special Court for Sierra Leone. These tribunals were established for the prosecution of the most serious crime committed in clearly defined conflicts.

The Human Rights Council and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was created in 1993 by a resolution of the UN General Assembly . It ' represents the world's commitment to universal ideals of human dignity ' and its mandate is to promote and protect all Human Rights. To this end, the OHCHR can rely on the Human Rights Council as well as the core treaty bodies for promoting the universal ratification and implementation of international treaties concerning Human Rights. The OHCHR's priorities are set out in two key strategic documents: the OHCHR Plan of Action and its Strategic Management Plan 2010-2011.
The Human Rights Council was created by the UN General Assembly in 2006 ' with the main purpose of addressing situations of Human Rights violations and make recommendations on them '.The Council is an inter-governmental body composed of 47 States responsible for the promotion of Human Rights. In 2007, the Human Rights Council introduced the Universal Periodic Review mechanism which aims to ' assess the Human Rights situations in all 192 UN Member States '. Furthermore, an Advisory Committee was created in order to provide a deep expertise on thematic Human Rights issues. In addition, a complaint's procedure mechanism ' allows individuals and organizations to bring complaints about Human Rights violations to the attention of the Council '.

Human Rights

Further readings