WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?

Human rights are those activities, conditions, and freedoms that all human beings are entitled to enjoy, by virtue
of their humanity. They include civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Human rights are inherent,
inalienable, interdependent, and indivisible, meaning they cannot be granted or taken away, the enjoyment of
one right affects the enjoyment of others, and they must all be respected.

However, only governments are in a position to put in place the laws and policies necessary for protection of
human rights and to regulate private and public practices that impact individuals’ enjoyment of those rights.
Therefore, we think of national governments (“States”) as the guarantors, or violators, of human rights.

Classically, “human rights” protect individuals from government action that would threaten or harm certain
freedoms thought to be fundamental, such as life, physical integrity, and liberty. International human rights law
is, essentially, a set of rules governing State behavior vis-a-vis individuals and, at its most basic, requires States
to ensure that people can enjoy their fundamental freedoms. Like national constitutions, which are covenants
between governments and their citizens, international human rights treaties are covenants between States and
the international community, whereby States agree to guarantee certain rights within their own territories.

When States ratify human rights treaties, they agree to both refrain from violating specific rights and to
guarantee enjoyment of those rights by individuals and groups within their jurisdictions. Regional and
international oversight bodies contribute to State compliance and provide opportunities for redress and
accountability that may be non-existent or ineffective at the national level. However, becoming party to a treaty
or agreeing to oversight by a supranational body generally remains voluntary. The level of participation in the
international human rights framework varies among States.

The driving idea behind international human rights law is that – because it is States who are in a position to
violate individuals’ freedoms – respect for those freedoms may be hard to come by without international
consensus and oversight. That is, a State which does not guarantee basic freedoms to its citizens is unlikely to
punish or correct its own behavior, particularly in the absence of international consensus as to the substance of
those freedoms and a binding commitment to the international community to respect them.

States’ human rights duties have come to include positive and negative obligations. This means that, in limited
circumstances, States may have a duty to take proactive steps to protect individuals’ rights (rather than merely
refraining from directly violating those rights), including from non-State action. In addition, demand for
protections beyond the traditional civil and political sphere have increased the number and variety of interests
which are now considered rights, particularly in the area of economic, social and cultural concerns. As such, we
refer to States’ duties to: respect, protect, and fulfill the enjoyment of human rights.

While international human rights courts and monitoring bodies oversee States’ implementation of international
human rights treaties, a variety of other sources are also relevant to the determination of individuals’ rights and
States’ obligations. These include the judicial and quasi-judicial decisions of international and domestic courts
on international human rights law or its domestic equivalents; the decisions of domestic and international courts
on the related (but distinct) subject of international criminal law; and analysis and commentary by scholars and
others. Of course, a necessary component of human rights protection is the factual research identifying the
conditions which may constitute violations, which is conducted by intergovernmental organizations, as well as
by civil society.

International human rights law is dynamic and its boundaries are daily being pushed in new directions.
IJRC’s News Room can help readers keep up with developments in the law, its interpretation, and the
individuals and communities who are affected.

THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK

In the post-World War II period, international consensus crystallized around the need to identify the individual
rights and liberties which all governments should respect, and to establish mechanisms for both promoting
States’ adherence to their human rights obligations and for addressing serious breaches. Thus, in the decade
following the war, national governments cooperated in the establishment of the United Nations (UN),[1] the
Organization of American States (OAS),[2] and the Council of Europe (COE),[3] each including among its
purposes the advancement of human rights.

These intergovernmental organizations then prepared non-binding declarations or binding treaties which
spelled out the specific liberties understood to be human rights, including the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights,[4] American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man,[5] and the European Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.[6] By the end of the 1950s, these three systems
(United Nations, Inter-American and European) had each established mechanisms for the promotion and
protection of human rights, which included the (former) UN Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights, the (former) European Commission of Human Rights, and the European Court
of Human Rights.

In subsequent decades, each oversaw the drafting of human rights agreements on specific topics[7] and
created additional oversight mechanisms, which now include the United Nations treaty bodies and Universal
Periodic Review, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the European Committee of Social Rights.

More recently, other intergovernmental organizations have also established, or begun to establish, regional
human rights treaties and monitoring mechanisms. In Africa, the African Commission on Human and
Peoples’ Rights and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights monitor State compliance with the
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.[8] The decline of the Soviet Union spurred the formation of the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) which recognized dialogue on human rights,
political and military relations, and economic development as being equally important to sustained peace and
stability across Europe and the (former) Soviet States.[9] In Southeast Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) has recently created the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights,[10] and
the League of Arab States in 2009 created the Arab Human Rights Committee.[11]

In addition, the UN, Inter-American, and African systems appoint individual experts to monitor human rights
conditions in a range of priority areas, such as arbitrary detention and discrimination. These experts are often
called rapporteurs, and they carry out their work by receiving information from civil society, visiting countries,
and reporting on human rights conditions and the ways in which they violate or comply with international
norms. The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights fulfills a similar role, although his mandate is
not issue-specific.[12] The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights supports and coordinates the UN’s
human rights activities, in addition to independently addressing issues of concern through country visits,
dialogue with stakeholders, and public statements, much as rapporteurs do.[13]

HUMAN RIGHTS BODIES’ FUNCTIONS

One can think of the different mechanisms for the protection of human rights as overlapping umbrellas of
distinct sizes, positioned around the globe. The different umbrellas are made up of the courts and monitoring
bodies of the following universal and regional human rights systems:

 United Nations
o UN Human Rights Council
o human rights treaty bodies
o independent experts known as “special procedures“
o Universal Periodic Review
 Africa
o African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
o African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
 the Americas
o Inter-American Court of Human Rights
o Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
 Europe
o European Court of Human Rights
o European Committee of Social Rights
 o Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights
 the Middle East & North Africa
o Arab Human Rights Committee
 Southeast Asia
o ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights

These human rights bodies each have different functions and jurisdiction, as shown in the below diagram and
explanatory chart of human rights mechanisms’ competencies. In general, these mechanisms’ responsibilities
may include: deciding complaints against States, engaging in independent monitoring through country visits and
reporting, and reviewing States’ reports on their own compliance with human rights standards.

In addition, other intergovernmental or political bodies engage in standard-setting, inter-State dialogue,

monitoring, or promotion of human rights; such bodies include the UN Human Rights Council, ASEAN
Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, and the Commission on the Status of Women.

Click on the image below to open a PDF version of the diagram with hyperlinks to each body.

Other International Courts & Monitoring Bodies

In addition, a variety of other international bodies outside of what is traditionally referred to as the
“international human rights framework” also play a role in addressing human rights violations.

For example, States may bring complaints against other States before the International Court of Justice, which
from time to time decides cases involving individuals’ human rights from the standpoint of one State’s
allegation that another violated the terms of an international agreement (such as by not affording its nationals
access to consular representatives when they were detained in the second State). The International Labour
Organization (ILO) also oversees States’ compliance with international labor standards, including by receiving
inter-State complaints concerning alleged violations of ILO conventions.

Further, individuals (as opposed to States) may be criminally prosecuted for violations of international
humanitarian law or international criminal law or of jus cogens norms of international law, or may be sued
civilly under domestic law. The International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and a number of internationalized criminal tribunals
undertake such prosecutions.

A number of regional courts created through economic integration or development agreements have jurisdiction
to adjudicate disputes related to human rights. These courts and tribunals of regional economic
communities operate in subregions of Africa, the Americas, and Europe.

Finally, national, or “domestic,” bodies also play an important role in implementing and enforcing international
human rights standards, including through national human rights institutions (NHRIs), domestic civil and
criminal legal proceedings, the exercise of universal jurisdiction, and truth and reconciliation commissions.
CROSS-FERTILIZATION & COMPETING JURISDICTION
These overlapping umbrellas sometimes mean that a particular State will participate in, and report to, several
supranational human rights bodies. For example, in the Western Hemisphere, all 35 independent countries are
members of the Organization of American States and, as such, have signed the American Declaration of the
Rights and Duties of Man, under which complaints can be brought against them before the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights. In addition, each of these countries may or may not have ratified one or more of
the core UN human rights treaties overseen by a treaty body – such as the Committee Against Torture – that
accepts individual complaints. Additionally, each State may have agreed to bring inter-State disputes arising
under a specific treaty, such as the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to the International Court of
Justice. Further, any of these States may also be a party to the Rome Statute, meaning it is obligated to
cooperate with the International Criminal Court in the prosecution of individuals suspected of committing
genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or (in the future) aggression.

Although each of the various human rights bodies operates independently from the others, under a specific
mandate and within the scope of its particular treaties, the provisions of the regional and universal human rights
treaties are often highly similar. As such, each tribunal often looks to the jurisprudence of the others when
deciding novel or delicate questions. Tribunals also look to other bodies’ interpretations when another treaty
exists (typically a universal treaty) that is more specific or germane to the topic at hand, such as when tribunals
look to the International Labour Organization conventions in interpreting the scope of labor rights.

However, this does not mean that the various tribunals have reached consistent conclusions on similar matters.
Neither does it mean that the jurisprudence of each body is as developed as the rest. Some tribunals have
decades’ more experience than others; some, such as the European Court of Human Rights, are so well-known
in their regions that they are inundated with claims, while others receive only a handful per year.

Further, the fact that various systems exist does not mean that an individual complainant will be able to obtain
redress before any or all of them. Indeed, most judicial and quasi-judicial human rights bodies will only
examine an individual complaint if it has not been previously determined by another international body. Finally,
each body’s jurisdiction is subject to distinct geographical, temporal and substantive limitations.

Accordingly, the layers of protection vary from State to State, depending on the existence of a regional human
rights system and each State’s ratification of regional and universal instruments. Use of one system over another
will depend not only on State membership, but also on which body has produced more favorable case law, the
reparations and other outcomes available at each, and practical considerations such as case processing time and
backlogs.