This Human Rights Day, commemorating the 10 December 1948 proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we embark on a year-long observance of the 50th anniversary of the two International Covenants on Human Rights: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966.
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To mark Human Rights Day, we have produced a map of 50 landmark human rights cases, each with a brief description and a link to a free article or report on the case.
The cases were chosen in conjunction with the editors of the Oxford Reports on International Law. These choices were intended to showcase the variety of international, regional, and national mechanisms and fora for adjudicating human rights claims, and the range of rights that have been recognized.
The following map provides a quick tour to these cases, highlighting trends and themes, some positive, some negative.
Major Historical Events
A lot of these cases are important because of the way they demonstrate the possibility of righting historic injustices: for the disappeared of Honduras, for victims of Argentina’s “dirty war,” for Hitler’s slaves, heroes of the Chernobyl disaster, and East Germans gunned down trying to reach the West. They also shine a light on what happens in the aftermath of war: Peruvian politicians attempting to pass amnesty laws to prevent accountability, people on the losing side of World War II having their property stolen, and the operation of post-World War I minorities treaties.
Africa
From a human rights standpoint we probably have a number of preconceptions about Africa – large scale atrocities and impunity. While that is horribly true in places there are also aspects of the cases highlighted in our map that might surprise some. The one case about an investor’s rights (Diallo) features an African state, not one of the typical capital exporting states, taking legal action on behalf of its citizen. There is also the range of fora in Africa that offer remedies. In addition to the obvious forum – the Commission and Court of the African regional human rights system, we have cases from the East-African Court of Justice and the ECOWAS Community Court both finding that they are empowered to adjudicate on human rights issues as universal as the rights of indigenous peoples and anti-slavery. Whereas you wouldn’t be surprised to see a post-Apartheid decision from the South African domestic courts in this list, it is instructive to see a case from Ugandan domestic courts on press freedom.
Expansion of Rights
The modern proliferation of rights is often a topic of humorous exaggeration. These cases exemplify a great breadth of rights beyond the classic civil and political rights of freedom from torture, or free speech. Where it does address these topics there is a novel twist: on torture, whether it is OK to extradite criminals to a place where they face torture; on free speech, whether Holocaust denial should be protected. Several have gender aspects: states’ obligations to prevent domestic violence, women being required to prove they are the “breadwinner” in order to have access to unemployment benefits, sexual violence against women as a means to silence political dissent. Others bring in group rights: self-determination, rights of indigenous peoples, and even the rights of tribes imported via the slave trade. Add to these cases on the execution of minors, anti-homosexuality laws, and treating a person’s DNA as their private matter, and we see how far the law has developed.
Unattractive Victims
Opponents of human rights litigation often point out that these rights are frequently claimed by people whom we deplore. It is true that many of the people making claims in these cases were accused of murder and terrorism, or at least were sworn enemies of the state that (allegedly) abused them. So the lesson here is that these are human rights, not “nice people’s” rights.
Human Rights as an Excuse
With so many human rights remedies available there is a temptation for litigants, whether states or individuals, to use human rights as a way to get an issue before a court. You would expect the case between Georgia and the Russian Federation at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to be about the illegal use of force by Russia. Instead, Georgia sued under a human rights treaty: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Why? Ordinarily Russia could refuse to submit to a legal procedure at the ICJ, but the CERD contains a provision saying that in any dispute under that treaty between two states that have ratified it (which Russia and Georgia had) both parties must agree to the jurisdiction of the ICJ. So Georgia gets minor revenge for Russia’s invasion and annexation by suing Russia for racial discrimination.
Misleading Maps
You might think the clustering of pins in our map is about abuses, but actually it demonstrates access to a legal process (and, depending on implementation) a remedy. So plenty of pins in Europe, and Israel, but none in Saudi Arabia or North Korea.
These 50 cases are by no measurable sense the 50 greatest or most important cases, but they do amply demonstrate the expansion and increasing profile of this, mostly admirable, element of the rule of law.
Featured image credit: Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”. Photo by dbking. CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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Today, 10 December, is Human Rights Day, commemorating The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. In celebration, we’re sharing an edited extract from International Human Rights Law, Second Edition by Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.
The modern state can be a source of both good and evil. It can do much good – protecting our security, ensuring our basic necessities, nurturing an environment in which people can flourish to the best of their abilities. But when it represses its people, shirks its duties, or misapplies its resources, it can be the source of much suffering.
International human rights law sets forth the core obligations of governments toward their people, prescribing the basic freedoms that governments must respect and the steps they must take to uphold public welfare. But the application of that law often differs from the enforcement of statutes typically found in a nation’s law books.
In countries that enjoy the rule of law, the courts can usually be relied on to enforce legislation. The rule of law means that courts have the independence to apply the law free of interference, and powerful actors, including senior government officials, are expected to comply with court orders.
In practice, there is no such presumption in most of the countries where my organization, Human Rights Watch, works, and where international human rights law is most needed. The judges are often corrupt, intimidated, or compromised. They may not dare hold the government to account, or they may have been co-opted to the point that they do not even try, or the government may succeed in ignoring whatever efforts they make.
International human rights law should be seen as a law of last resort when domestic rights legislation fails. Judicial enforcement is always welcome, but when it falls short, human rights law provides a basis that is distinct from domestic legislation for putting pressure on governments to uphold their obligations.
Human rights groups investigate and report on situations in which governments fall short of their obligations. The resulting publicity, through the media and other outlets, can undermine a government’s standing and credibility, embarrassing it before its people and peers and generating pressure for reform.
Beyond documenting and reporting violations of human rights law, human rights groups must shape public opinion to ensure that the exposure of government misconduct is met with opprobrium rather than approval. In part this is done by citing international law to convince the public of a global consensus about what is right or wrong in a given context. By presenting an issue in terms of rights, human rights groups help the public to develop a moral framework for assessing governmental conduct beyond public sentiment in any particular case or incident.
For the law to play this role of moral instruction, it is not enough simply to recite it. When people’s security or traditions are at stake, it takes more than a mere reference to the law to change the public’s sense of moral propriety. Human rights groups must be creative in moving the public to embrace what the law demands.
Sometimes it is difficult to convince a local public to disapprove of its government’s conduct. Thus, the great challenge facing human rights groups is often less concerned with arguing the law’s fine points or applying them to the facts of a case than with convincing the public that violations are wrong. That requires the hard work of helping the public to identify with the victim’s plight, making the law come alive, and generating outrage at its violation with some public of relevance. When human rights law can be made to correspond with the public’s sense of right and wrong, governments face intense pressure to respect that law. Shame can be a powerful motivator.
Headline image credit: Hands raised. CC0 via Pixabay.
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