8 Nov 13.15-15.00 room 420

Although human rights are not confined to what is defined as human rights law the legal definition of human rights is relevant especially because it assigns obligations for states and facilitates the implementation and enforcement of these rights. The session engages with these issues while focusing in particular on the international system for the monitoring of human rights.

We will explore questions such as:

What is human rights law?
Where does it come from?
Is it mandatory to all states (and potentially other actors such as businesses and even the individual person)?
What mechanisms exist to monitor the compliance of human rights?
What are their characteristics, composition, mandate, and ultimately, their potential and limits?
How do these mechanisms ‘speak to’ human rights violations that may occur very far from where these bodies are geographically located?

Slides

Reading:

Goodhart (2023):

Ch 2 ("Human Rights in International Law") - basic introduction to this topic;
Ch 11 ("Treaties, Monitoring, and Enforcement") - more in depth coverage including a case study on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Bantekas & Oette (2020) - another detailed account on the topic:

Ch 2 ("International Human Rights Law: The Normative Framework")
Ch 4 ("The United Nations Charter System")
Ch 5 ("The UN Human Rights Treaty System")

Further suggested material:

Blog: How effective are supranational human rights monitoring mechanisms? A recent blog piece on this topic available here: https://www.openglobalrights.org/compliance-UN-treaty-body-decisions/

Academic literature:
- Nowak, Manfred (2009) Fact-Finding on Torture and Ill-Treatment and Conditions of Detention. Journal of Human Rights Practice 1(1) pp. 101–119 (Reflections of the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture about the nature of the role)
- Hunt, Paul (2017) Configuring the UN Human Rights System in the "era of Implementation": Mainland and Archipelago. Human Rights Quarterly 39(3) pp. 489-538 (arguing for the wider involvement of the UN system beyond the core human rights mechanisms)
- Sikkink, Part II (Ch 3 and Ch 4) provides an insightful political-historical account of key moments in the development of international human rights legal standards and monitoring mechanisms since the creation of the UN.
News: Human rights and poverty expert Philip Alston walks a fine line, Devex, 2018 (On the work of the UN Special Raporteur on Human rights and Extreme Poverty) https://www.devex.com/news/human-rights-and-poverty-expert-philip-alston-walks-a-fine-line-92295
Watch the brief OHCHR overview about UN Treaty Bodies: