The Human Rights Covenants at 50

First And Second Generation

Half a century ago, on 16 December 1966, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). While the adoption of the twin Covenants was celebrated all over the world, their fiftieth anniversary has received very little attention from the international community. This book marks this anniversary by taking stock of the first half-century of the existence of what are probably the world’s two most important human rights treaties. It does so by reflecting on what the Covenants have achieved (or failed to achieve) in the years that have passed, determining and comparing their current influence in the various regions of the world, and assessing their potential roles in the future. The book contains papers presented during a symposium held in Zurich in 2016, which brought together experts and stakeholders from a range of disciplines and world regions. Some fundamental issues addressed by the contributors are as old as the two Covenants themselves. They concern, for example, the division of human rights into first- and second-generation rights, and the question of whether there should be one central monitoring body—possibly a world court—or more than just one. Other important questions dealt with are how the Covenants should be interpreted and who is bound by them. However, the contributors go beyond such questions, which have been explored before; they develop new answers to old questions and point to new challenges.

The Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Lands Once Part of the Old Dominions of the Crown

International and Comparative Law Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0020589300061224 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 46 (4) ◽

pp. 812-830 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Anthony Mason

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Moral Foundations ◽

Political Rights ◽

Land Resources ◽

Way Of Life ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

The World ◽

Rights Issue

Of all the rights of indigenous people, none is more central to the survival of their culture than the claim to their ancestral lands. The resolution of their claims to ancestral lands is one of the fundamental issues of our time—indeed of all time. Often called a human rights issue—a description apt to reinforce the strong moral foundations of the claims of the indigenous peoples—it is an issue which we cannot ignore. Throughout the world people of all races and all colours have a powerful emotional attachment to their ancestral lands. That attachment is the very core of a people's culture and is vital to the survival of the culture. As the UN Human Rights Committee has recognised, in the context of the exercise of cultural rights protected by Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “culture manifests itself in many forms, including a particular way of life associated with the use of land resources”.

International Human Rights Law and the Response to the covid-19 Pandemic

Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies ◽

10.1163/18781527-bja10004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 249-269

Author(s):

Sarah Joseph

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Human Rights ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

International Human ◽

Do So

Abstract States have duties under Article 12(2)(c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to prevent, control and treat covid-19. Implementation of these three obligations is analysed, taking account of countervailing human rights considerations. Regarding prevention, lockdowns designed to stop the spread of the virus are examined. Control measures are then discussed, namely transparency measures, quarantine, testing and tracing. The human rights compatibility of treatment measures, namely the provision of adequate medical and hospital care (or the failure to do so), are then examined. Finally, derogations from human rights treaties in times of pubic emergency are discussed.

The Protection of Human Rights by the Organization of American States

The American Journal of International Law ◽

10.2307/2197015 ◽

1968 ◽

Vol 62 (4) ◽

pp. 889-908 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

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 ◽

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.

BRIDGING THE INTERNATIONAL GAP: THE ROLE OF NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES IN AFRICA

Obiter ◽

10.17159/obiter.v39i3.11330 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 39 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Aliyu Ibrahim

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Human Rights ◽

Political Rights ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

National Human ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

National Human Rights Institutions ◽

Domestic Level

While most of the United Nations (UN) treaties have committees to monitor the implementation of their provisions among their States parties, one of the major challenges they encounter is their inability to independently verify the information provided by the States parties, on the level of fulfilling their obligations to the treaties. However, the establishment of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) by the majority of UN member states was meant to not only promote and protect human rights within the territories of States parties, but also to monitor the implementation of the provisions of treaties at the domestic level. This resulted in treaty bodies to encourage NHRIs, in monitoring and providing it with information on the level of implementation of the provisions of these treaties within the territories of respective States parties. This article examines whether these institutions in Africa have been able to discharge their mandates concerning the implementation of two treaties, namely, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which is monitored by the Human Rights Committee (HRC) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) which is overseen by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). The NHRIs of South Africa, Morocco and Nigeria have been selected to test the effectiveness of these institutions. The study ultimately shows that the majority of these institutions are still far off from achieving their potential.

Human Rights

The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Asia and the Pacific ◽

10.1093/law/9780198793854.003.0006 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 123-141

Author(s):

Hurst Hannum

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Great Majority ◽

Political Rights ◽

Regional Organizations ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

The Pacific ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

Western Values ◽

Human Rights Norms

This chapter focuses on human rights in Asia and the Pacific. On the level of purely legal commitments, the great majority of Asian and Pacific states have ratified both of the two major UN human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the most developed of the sub-regional organizations with respect to human rights, although that development has been fairly recent and, to date, relatively minimal. However, attempts to characterize or distinguish different approaches to human rights in Asia frequently include reference to a number of arguments put forward to justify Asian exceptionalism in this field. Perhaps the most widely asserted argument contends that ‘Asian values’ are different from the Western values that animate today’s international human rights norms.

5 The ‘Incubation’ of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1968–1992)

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights ◽

10.1093/law/9780198863151.003.0006 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Pace John P

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Current Level ◽

General Assembly ◽

Political Rights ◽

Implementation Processes ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

Level Of Understanding ◽

Fourth Session ◽

Real Test

This chapter focuses on the ‘incubation’ of economic, social and cultural rights. The implementation of human rights presented challenges to the Commission on Human Rights from its first years of existence. It was the main reason invoked to separate civil and political rights from economic, social and cultural rights, and to have two Covenants instead of the unitary convention, as originally decided by the General Assembly. Once the two Covenants were adopted and opened for signature and ratification in 1966, the international community would face the real test of the implementation processes. Whereas the implementation of civil and political rights presented relatively little question, the implementation—or better still, ‘realization’—of economic, social and cultural rights, both in substance and in procedure, gave rise to much debate and took several years to reach the current level of understanding and acceptance. The formal focus on the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights was launched in 1968 when PE Nedbailo (Ukrainian SSR), outgoing Chairman of the Commission, proposed the inclusion of ‘Study of the question of the realization of the economic and social rights’ in the agenda of the twenty-fourth session. It was to remain on the agenda of the Commission for the rest of the Commission's existence, and thereafter on the agenda of the Human Rights Council.

The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies ◽

10.26417/ejms.v6i1.p37-44 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 37

Author(s):

Ayse Cebecioglu Haldız

Keyword(s):

General Assembly ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Human Rights ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

Optional Protocol ◽

Un General Assembly ◽

The Right

An Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 2008 and it came into force on 5 May 2013. The protocol gives individuals the right to raise complaints about violations of their rights which are enshrined by the covenant. Although, an optional protocol regulating the complaint procedure for its sister treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was entered into force in 1976, it was postponed for ICESCR until 2013 because of the historic debate discussing whether these rights are justiciable or not. This division between the treaties left the protection of the ESCR in the background. This essay will analyse the extent to which the protocol resolved the historical concerns about the protection of economic, social and cultural rights under international human rights law.

Investigating the extraterritorial application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

De Jure ◽

10.17159/2225-7160/2021/v54a5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 54 ◽

Author(s):

Simon Mateus

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

Military Occupation ◽

Political Rights ◽

International Human Rights ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

The Subject ◽

The territorial scope of the application of human rights treaties has been a core discussion when dealing with the enforcement of human rights obligations imposed by human rights treaties on State Parties. In particular, this is because the conduct of a State may affect the human rights of people situated outside the State's territorial borders. Accordingly, to afford protection to the affected States, most international human rights instruments contain the so-called jurisdictional clause which aims to identify the range of people to whom States owe their human rights obligations under a treaty. However, the term "jurisdiction" has not achieved an undoubted definition as yet and remains a continued area of contention. The subject matter of this article is the extraterritorial application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). It concerns therefore, the applicability of these human rights treaties to the conduct of a State which affects the rights of people outside its territorial borders and results in the lack of the full enjoyment of the human rights recognised in the Covenants, and which would be qualified as a violation of human rights treaty had it been undertaken on the State Party's own territory. Although most of the literature on this topic relates specifically to armed conflict and military occupation, the author applies the tests established for the determination of the exterritoriality of the treaties in circumstances inclusive of and beyond armed conflict and military occupation.

The Strategic Use of Human Rights Treaties in Hong Kong’s Cage-Home Crisis: No Way Out?

Asian Journal of Law and Society ◽

10.1017/als.2015.23 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 159-188 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Luke MARSH

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Hong Kong ◽

Government Policies ◽

Political Rights ◽

Ongoing Debate ◽

Cultural Rights ◽

Socioeconomic Rights ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

Legal Nature ◽

AbstractUsing a socioeconomic rights framework, this article will evaluate government policy relating to housing welfare in Hong Kong. In particular, it will explore the alarming plight of cage tenants in Hong Kong, a highly marginalized group estimated to be as many as 200,000 in number, who live day to day in cramped, dank dwellings averaging 15 square feet in size. It will argue that current government policies are incompatible with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It will further look at strategies for domesticating these international human rights treaties. In doing so, this article will contribute to the ongoing debate concerning the legal nature of socioeconomic rights.

The United States and human rights

Review of International Studies ◽

10.1017/s026021050011438x ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 73-89

Author(s):

Christopher Brewin

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Human Rights ◽

The United States ◽

General Assembly ◽

Social Rights ◽

Political Rights ◽

Bill Of Rights ◽

Related Concept ◽

Un General Assembly ◽

These excellent books mark the reception in American thinking of the doctrine that economic and social rights (Shue, Brown/Maclean, Hoffmann, Vogelgesang, Falk) are at least as important as the civil and political rights of Henkin's ‘International Bill of Rights’. The English contribution to this literature, the collection of documents edited by Brownlie, makes no distinction between sets of rights; and by reprinting work by Prebisch and Figueres, Brownlie promotes the thesis that development and human rights go together. However, it is worth noticing that all these authors ignore the efforts by the majority of countries in the UN General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights to assert the related concept of rights to development, notably in GA Resolution 32/130 (1977).