Women’s Progress and Women’s Human Rights

2019 ◽  
pp. 231-266
Author(s):  
Martha C. Nussbaum

Focusing primarily on CEDAW, this chapter examines the role that international human rights law plays in the advancement of the protection of human rights of women. The author claims that although human rights law lags well behind the women’s movement in some crucial ways, nonetheless, it is worthwhile that documents like CEDAW exist, and not merely for their direct legal value (which can be questioned). Documents help people to network across national boundaries and to develop a sense of common purpose, a common language, a common set of demands, and a sense that progress is being made. In a few cases, moreover, CEDAW has had a real, if limited, legal significance, when implemented by friendly jurists. The author suggests that the influence of international human rights law ought to be assessed, often at least, in this broader way, looking at the role of documents in political and social movements.

Author(s):  
O. M. Sheredʹko

Prominent international law scholar H. Lauterpacht devoted most of his exploratory work to the issue of human rights in international law.This article reveals H. Lauterpacht’s views on the role of international law in the recognition and consolidation of human rights and the role of jusnaturalism as the basis of international human rights law. Analyzing the works by H. Lauterpacht, we can say that the scholar was the founder of international human rights law. Natural law and natural human rights, according to H. Lauterpacht, have been the unchanging basis of human rights of all times.The origins and periodization of jusnaturalism in the works of leading international law scholar are considered. The main statements of the representatives of the natural law concept of different times, in particular, the basic ideas in the works of Socrates, Aulis Aarnio, Francisco de Vitoria, Francisco Suarez, Alberico Gentili, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel von Pufendorf, Hugo Grotius are outlined.The views of prominent philosophers are the foundation of the concept of jusnaturalism.  Numerous supporters of the concept of natural law in different periods of history testify to its importance at every stage of human rights development.International law in this matter is a kind of second stage of recognition and protection of human rights, after recognition in the national law of states.International law is designed to consolidate the rights granted by nature to the human in the international arena.H. Lauterpacht saw the real recognition and protection of human rights by enshrining them in an international document signed by all countries of the world.The scientist proposed a draft international document on the recognition of human rights at the international level called International Bill of the Rights of Man. The provisions proposed in this document were later enshrined in international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966.


Author(s):  
Neuman Gerald L

This article examines the role of the principle of subsidiarity in international human rights law. It explains the concept and the procedural doctrines of subsidiarity and considers subsidiarity of international institutions as a structural fact and the substantive subsidiarity within the state. It contends that international protection of human rights is subsidiary to national protection and that subsidiarity plays important roles in international human rights law. This article also predicts the future expansion and evolution of the role of subsidiarity in international human rights law.


Author(s):  
Samantha Besson

As a companion to the five regional reports in this volume, this chapter’s aim is a double one: first, to bring the comparison up to the regional level, and second, to analyse the international and domestic institutions, procedures, and mechanisms that affect how international human rights instruments influence domestic law. The chapter is therefore both a study in comparative international human rights law and a contribution to its methodology. Its structure is four-pronged. The first section clarifies the aim, object, and method of the comparison. The second section presents a comparative assessment of the Covenants’ domestic influence across regions and develops a grid of comparative analysis. The third section addresses the authority of the Committees’ interpretations of the Covenants, relying on a bottom-up comparative law argument. The fourth section discusses the role of human rights comparison and of regional human rights law in enhancing the legitimacy of the Committees’ future interpretations.


2020 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Michelle Jurkovich

This chapter considers the puzzling role of international law around the right to food and examines why the existing law has been unable to generate norms within the advocacy community. It explores the reasons why international anti-hunger organizations rarely legitimate the right to food in legal terms and how this case can challenge the understanding of the relationships between norms, human rights, and law. It also provides a conceptual discussion of the distinction between formal law and norms, underscoring the importance of not conflating the two concepts. The chapter argues that many international anti-hunger organizations still do not conceptualize food as a human right, making international human rights law less relevant. It looks at the hunger case that suggests there is nothing automatic about law generating norms among activists or society at large.


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