Access to Justice and International Organizations: The Case of Individual Victims of Human Rights Violations. Pierre Schmitt. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017. Pp. xxix, 370. ISBN: 978 1 78643 288 9. US$160.00.

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-63
Author(s):  
Karin Johnsrud
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Edward Elgar

Accountability in Global Governance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisela Hirschmann
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
The Right ◽  
Austerity Policy ◽  
Comprehensive Study

How can international organizations (IOs) like the United Nations (UN) and their implementing partners be held accountable if their actions and policies violate fundamental human rights? Political scientists and legal scholars have shed a much-needed light on the limits of traditional accountability when it comes to complex global governance. However, conventional studies on IO accountability fail to systematically analyze a related, puzzling empirical trend: human rights violations that occur in the context of global governance do not go unnoticed altogether; they are investigated and sanctioned by independent third parties. This book puts forward the concept of pluralist accountability, whereby third parties hold IOs and their implementing partners accountable for human rights violations. We can expect pluralist accountability to evolve if a competitive environment stimulates third parties to enact accountability and if the implementing actors are vulnerable to human rights demands. Based on a comprehensive study of UN-mandated operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo, the European Union Troika’s austerity policy, and global public–private health partnerships in India, this book demonstrates how competition and human rights vulnerability shape the evolution of pluralist accountability in response to diverse human rights violations, such as human trafficking, the violation of the rights of detainees, economic rights, and the right to consent in clinical trials. While highlighting the importance of studying alternative accountability mechanisms, this book also argues that pluralist accountability should not be regarded as a panacea for IOs’ legitimacy problems, as it is often less legalized and might cause multiple accountability disorder.

The Politics of Human Rights Diplomacy

2020 ◽  
pp. 097359842094343
Author(s):  
Anupama Ghosal ◽  
Sreeja Pal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
United Nations ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Precise Formulation ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Relationship

The issue of Human Rights features as a prominent agenda of the United Nations and its related international organizations. However, when it comes to precise formulation of a country’s foreign policy in bilateral or multilateral forums, the issues of trade and national security find priority over pressing human rights violations occurring within the countries engaged in the diplomatic dialogue. An often-employed reason behind such an approach is the need to respect sovereignty and non-interference of a country in diplomacy. This article aims at analysing the potential which diplomacy holds to pressurize recalcitrant regimes to respect human rights. In doing so, the article tries to explore the ambit of Human Rights Diplomacy and the relationship between agenda of politics and human rights.

Human Rights Violations before International Tribunals: Reflections onResponsibility of International Organizations

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 613-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
GUIDO ACQUAVIVA
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Parent Body ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Parallel Processes ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
International Responsibility ◽  
International Law Commission

The UN Security Council, as ‘parent body’ of the two ad hoc Tribunals, never introduced explicit rules on how to compensate accused persons for violations of their rights imputable to the Tribunals' organs. Notwithstanding the absence of such rules, a series of decisions by ICTYand ICTR chambers show the willingness of these institutions to address such violations when they occur. In doing so, the Tribunals appear to have followed some of the same principles on responsibility of international organizations as are being elaborated by the International Law Commission (ILC). By analysing these parallel processes, the author suggests that the elaboration of rules by the ad hoc Tribunals in the field of human rights violations and the codification by the ILC of rules on international responsibility, although distinct in aim and scope, might mutually benefit each other andshed some light on the difficulties of applying such principles in practice.

scholarly journals Schermers’ Dilemma

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 565-582
Author(s):  
Jan Klabbers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
To Come ◽  
Post War

Abstract This article, part of the symposium on ‘theorizing international organizations law’, discusses the work (and a little of the life and influence) of Henry G. (Hein) Schermers, arguably the leading functionalist international organizations lawyer of the post-war era. The article discusses how Schermers’ work solidified and consolidated functionalism and unwittingly laid bare its ‘Achilles heel’. Confronted with the growing popularity of human rights and keenly devoted to human rights, Schermers faced a dilemma when the possible responsibility of international organizations for human rights violations came up – a dilemma his functionalism was unable to solve. Therewith, zooming in on Schermers’ handling of the dilemma confirms that functionalist international organizations law is unable to address the responsibility of international organizations towards third parties. International organizations law will need to find different theoretical resources in order to come to terms with responsibility.

Beyond UN Accountability for Human Rights Violations

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-104
Author(s):  
Frédéric Mégret
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
State Dependency ◽  
Host State ◽  
The United Nations

The overarching focus on the United Nations and its agents for human rights violations and abuses they may have committed, as well as the attention to troop contributing states and even ‘victims’, has broadly shifted attention away from the role of the host state in peace operation. This article seeks to unpack that omission and suggests that it is far more problematic than commonly thought, in particular because it tends to reproduce some of the problematic features of the political economy of peacekeeping that are the background of rights abuses in the first place. Instead, as part of a tradition of thinking of human rights in terms of sovereign protection, the article makes the case for taking much more seriously the role that the host state can and should have in order to address abuses by international organizations. It emphasises how international legal discourse has tended to ‘give up’ on the host state, but also how host states have themselves been problematically quiescent about violations occurring on their territory. This has forced victims to take the improbable route of seeking to hold the UN accountable directly, bereft of the sort of legal and political mediation which one would normally expect their sovereign to provide. The article contributes some thoughts as to why host states have not taken up their citizens’ cause more forcefully with the United Nations, including governmental weakness, a domestic culture of rights neglect, but also host state dependency on peace operations. The article then suggests some leads to rethink the role of the host state in such circumstances. It points out relevant avenues under international law as well as specifically under international human rights law, drawing on the literature developed to theorise the responsibilities of states in relation to private third-party non-state actors within their jurisdiction. It argues that there is no reason why the arguments developed with private actors, notably corporations, in mind could not be applied to public actors such as the UN. Finally, the article suggests some concrete ways in which the host state could more vigorously take up the cause of rights abuses against international organizations including by requiring the setting up of standing claims commissions or making more use of its consent to peace operations, as well as ways in which it could be forced to do so through domestic law recourses. The article concludes by suggesting that reinstating the host state within what should be its natural prerogatives will not only be a better way of dealing with UN abuses, but also more conducive to the goals of peacekeeping and state construction.

Localizing Human Rights SDGs: Ghana in context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar S. Abdellatif
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
West African ◽  
Public Access ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Agenda 2030

In September 2015, Ghana along all UN member states endorsed the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the cardinal agenda towards achieving a prosperous global future. The SDGs are strongly interdependent, making progress in all goals essential for a country’s achievement of sustainable development. While Ghana and other West African nations have exhibited significant economic and democratic development post-independence. The judiciary system and related legal frameworks, as well as the lack of rule law and political will for safeguarding the human rights of its citizens, falls short of considering violations against minorities. Will Ghana be able to localize human rights related SDGs, given that West African governments historically tended to promote internal security and stability at the expense of universal human rights? This paper focuses on evaluating the commitments made by Ghana towards achieving Agenda 2030, with a particular focus on the SDGs 10 and 16 relating to the promotion of reduced inequalities, peace, justice and accountable institutions. Moreover, this paper also analyzes legal instruments and state laws put in place post Ghana’s democratization in 1992 for the purpose of preventing discrimination and human rights violations in the nation. The article aims to highlight how Ghana’s post-independence political experience, the lack of rule of law, flaws in the judiciary system, and the weak public access to justice are obstacles to its effective localization of human rights SGDs. Those obstacles to Ghana’s compliance with SDGs 10 and 16 are outlined in this paper through a consideration of human rights violations faced by the Ghanaian Muslim and HIV minorities, poor prison conditions, limited public access to justice and the country’s failure to commit to international treaties on human rights. Keywords: Ghana, human rights, rule of law, security, Agenda 2030

scholarly journals La prohibición de la tortura: derecho humano

Tequio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (10) ◽  
pp. 36-46
Author(s):  
Guadalupe del Carmen Morales-Toledo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Multidisciplinary Team ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Istanbul Protocol ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Degrading Treatment

Torture is a crime linked to serious human rights violations. To prevent, investigate, sanction and eradicate it, represents one of the biggest challenges when it comes to justice and human rights within our country, which currently holds high levels of impunity, and requires new and better investigation techniques, methods and strategies, that will allow meeting the demands for access to justice requested by the victims of these crimes. People deprived of their liberty (PDL) are demanding that all acts of torture itself become the subject of an investigation conducted by a multidisciplinary team in which lawyers, doctors and psychologists participate, based on the guidelines constituted in the Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, commonly known as the Istanbul Protocol.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document