The UN Optional Protocol on the Abolition of the Death Penalty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Bossuyt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
European Convention ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Social Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

The drafting history of the Second Optional Protocol (1989) to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, is explained by the Special Rapporteur of the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights entrusted with an analysis of the proposal to elaborate such a protocol. Special attention is given to the adoption of the text successively by the Sub-Commission and the Commission on Human Rights, the Economic and Social Council, the Third Committee, and the General Assembly. Explanations are given on the possible reservation allowing an exception for ‘a most serious crime of a military nature committed during wartime’. The Second Optional Protocol is also compared with regional instruments on the abolition of the death penalty, such as the 6th (1983) and 13th (2002) Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights and the American Protocol aiming at the same abolition (1990).

The Protection of Human Rights by the Organization of American States

1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 889-908 ◽  
Author(s):  
José A. Cabranes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
American States ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

On December 16, 1966, the General Assembly approved three agreements designed to establish a global system of enforceable treaty obligations with respect to fundamental human rights. These agreements are the second part of the “international bill of rights” proposed at the San Francisco Conference. Eighteen years separated the adoption of these agreements—the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—and the approval in 1948 of the first part of the projected United Nations program for the protection of human rights, the non-binding Universal declaration of Human Rights.

23. The fourth, sixth, seventh, and thirteenth protocols

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Harris ◽  
Michael O’Boyle ◽  
Ed Bates ◽  
Carla Buckley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter discusses Protocols 4, 6, 7, and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Protocols 4 and 7 protect a selection of civil and political rights not covered by the main Convention text and which make up for the substantive deficiencies of the Convention when compared to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Protocols 6 and 13 concern the abolition of the death penalty in peacetime and in war, respectively.

scholarly journals The Admissibility of Multiple Human Rights Complaints: Strasbourg and Geneva Compared

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 517-536
Author(s):  
Christophe Deprez
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Human Rights Practice ◽  
European Court ◽  
International Human ◽  
Civil And Political Rights

Abstract This article seeks to provide a comparative and up-to-date overview of the applicable rules and relevant practice of the European Court of Human Rights and of the United Nations Human Rights Committee on forum duplication in international human rights litigation. While specific inadmissibility clauses have been included in both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with a view to preventing multiple human rights petitions in relation to the same matter, their respective scopes differ. Moreover, the applicable normative framework has led to important—and diverging—judicial developments in Strasbourg and in Geneva, which may be of great significance in human rights practice and therefore deserve to be thoroughly addressed.

scholarly journals Non-universal Human Rights? How Article 6 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Undermines Human Rights

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-117
Author(s):  
Billy Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
The Right

Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights facilitates inequality regarding the imposition of the death penalty and thus, it cannot ensure universality for the protection of the right to life. Paragraph two of this article states: ‘sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes.’ This article argues that the vagueness of the phrase ‘the most serious crimes’ allows states to undermine human rights principles and human dignity by affording states significant discretion regarding the human rights principles of equality and anti-discrimination. The article posits that this discretion allows states to undermine human dignity and the concept of universal human rights by challenging their universality; by facilitating legal inequality between men and women. Accordingly, it asserts that the implications of not expounding this vague phrase may be far-reaching, particularly in the long-term. The final section of this article offers a potential solution to this problem.

Protection and advancement of human rights in developing countries: Luxuries or necessities?

Human Affairs ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mazhar Siraj
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
History Of ◽  
Transnational Civil Society ◽  
Civil And Political Rights ◽  
Recent Financial Crisis ◽  
The Arab Spring

AbstractThe luxury-versus-necessity controversy is primarily concerned with the importance of civil and political rights vis-à-vis economic and social rights. The viewpoint of political leaders of many developing and newly industrialized countries, especially China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia is that civil and political rights are luxuries that only rich nations can afford. The United Nations, transnational civil society and the Western advanced countries oppose this viewpoint on normative and empirical grounds. While this controversy is far from over, new challenges of “evidence” and “marketization” are emerging. The first calls for a narrative on the history of civil and political rights in the West in the comparative context of the Industrial Revolution and the East Asian Miracle and China’s economic growth. The effects of the recent financial crisis and insulation of China from the Arab Spring further deepen this challenge. The marketization challenge looks at this controversy from the social exclusion angle. It argues that the basic needs covered by the minimum human rights agenda are becoming luxuries in a real sense for those who do not have the power to purchase these needs from the market.

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