Laws against the Denial of Historical Atrocities: A Human Rights Analysis

AbstractThe right to vote is the most important political right in international human rights law. Framed within the broader right of political participation, it is the only right in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights not guaranteed as a universal human right but rather as a citizen's right. While limitations on the right to vote are permissible in respect of citizenship and age, residency-based restrictions are not explicitly provided. However, recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights endorse a view that voting rights may be conditioned on residency on the grounds of an individual's bond to their country-of-origin and the extent to which laws passed by that government would affect them. This article questions this proposition and explores whether disenfranchisement based solely on residency constitutes an unreasonable and discriminatory restriction to the essence of the right.

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JUSTIFYING BLASPHEMY LAWS: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, PUBLIC MORALS, AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

Journal of Law and Religion ◽

10.1017/jlr.2020.11 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 35 (1) ◽

pp. 33-60

Author(s):

Neville Cox

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Freedom Of Expression ◽

Moral Vision ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Human Rights ◽

Racial Hatred ◽

International Human ◽

Civil And Political Rights

AbstractIn its General Comment No. 34 dealing with freedom of expression, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) rejected the idea that a blasphemy law could ever be human-rights compliant, unless its function was to prevent incitement to religious or racial hatred. This is a widely shared view that is consistently endorsed when any international blasphemy controversy (such as that involving the Danish Cartoons in 2005) arises. This article assesses the legitimacy of this view. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) permits freedom of expression to be limited inter alia in the name of public morality, provided that the law in question is also necessary to achieve this end. This article argues that because a blasphemy law can be a response to a public moral vision; therefore a blasphemy law can serve a legitimate purpose insofar as human rights law is concerned. It is further submitted that whereas some blasphemy laws are unacceptably draconian, it is not inherently impossible for such a law to represent a proportionate response to a public morals concern. Thus, the conclusion from the UNHRC is not warranted by the text of the ICCPR. Moreover, there is a risk that, in reaching this conclusion the committee is evincing an exclusively secularist worldview in its interpretation of the ICCPR that undermines its claim to universality.

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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 ◽

Civil And Political Rights ◽

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.

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The extraterritorial application of international human rights law on civil and political rights

Routledge Handbook of International Human Rights Law ◽

10.4324/9780203481417.ch35 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Ralph Wilde

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Human Rights ◽

International Human ◽

Civil And Political Rights

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Democracy and Compliance with Human Rights Treaties: The Conditional Effectiveness of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

International Studies Quarterly ◽

10.1093/isq/sqy058 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 63 (1) ◽

pp. 127-138

Author(s):

Daniel W Hill ◽

K Anne Watson

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Political Institutions ◽

Democratic Governance ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Beneficial Effects ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

Conditional Effect ◽

Civil And Political Rights

Abstract Research on international human rights law suggests that the beneficial effects of treaties depend on the strength of democratic political institutions. However, democracies are, by definition, compliant with many provisions in treaties that protect civil and political rights. Additionally, theories of compliance derive from a focus on civil and political rights rather than on other rights, so we lack a good understanding of whether predictions hold for other kinds of rights. We examine compliance with the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which protects rights that are distinct from those that characterize democratic governance. To measure compliance, we create a new indicator of women's rights that offers several advantages over existing indicators. We examine the conditional effect of CEDAW using models that allow for heterogenous treaty effects. This helps to adjudicate between theories that expect treaties to be most effective in highly democratic countries and those that expect them to be most effective among partial democracies. Our findings do not support either expectation and suggest that effectiveness does not depend on democracy, at least in the case of CEDAW. This points to the need to enrich existing theories of ratification and compliance by accounting for differences in the nature of the rights protected by different treaties.

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Part 1 Freedom of Religion or Belief, 1.3 The Right to Manifest One’s Religion or Belief

10.1093/law/9780198703983.003.0005 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Bielefeldt Heiner, Prof ◽

Ghanea Nazila, Dr ◽

Wiener Michael, Dr

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Freedom Of Religion ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

International Human Rights ◽

International Human ◽

Civil And Political Rights ◽

The Right

This chapter emphasizes that the outer manifestations of freedom of religion or belief (forum externum) are not in any sense less important than the inner nucleus of a person’s religious or belief-related conviction (forum internum), even though only the latter is protected unconditionally under international human rights law. This chapter also discusses the largely overlapping elements of the right to manifest one’s religion or belief ‘in worship, observance, practice and teaching’. Furthermore, it analyses the implications of the religion-related reservations, declarations, and objections made by a number of States when signing, ratifying, or acceding to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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Non-Universal Arguments under the European Convention on Human Rights

European Journal of International Law ◽

10.1093/ejil/chaa015 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 101-126

Author(s):

Tilmann Altwicker

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

European Convention ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Individual Freedom ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Institutional Legitimacy ◽

Difference Making ◽

European Court ◽

Human Rights Norms ◽

Made In

Abstract It is popular to view international human rights law as universal. In a normative sense, human rights universality refers to certain qualities of human rights norms. These qualities have long been under attack, most recently by what is called here human rights nationalism. The main point made in this article is that some of the criticism levelled against normative human rights universality can be accommodated through interpretation. To this end, non-universality of human rights is judicially created (argumentative non-universality). This article offers an analysis of argumentative non-universality in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It shows that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) operationalizes argumentative non-universality through a conception of asymmetric protection, by using context as a difference-making fact and by allowing, in certain cases, for a decentralized interpretation of rights under the ECHR. As argued here, resorting to argumentative non-universality sometimes makes sense because non-universality takes seriously the fact that individual freedom is, to some extent, socially and politically conditioned. Furthermore, non-universality allows for reasonable interpretive pluralism, and it contributes to the institutional legitimacy of the ECtHR. In conclusion, the ECtHR is, rightly so, an ‘interpreter of universality’ (as quoted by Judge Pinto de Albuquerque) as it is an interpreter of the non-universality of convention rights.

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Vitalising International Human Rights Law as Legal Authority: Freedom of Expression Enjoyed by Australian Public Servants and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

University of New South Wales Law Journal ◽

10.53637/wgas1009 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 43 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Azadeh Dastyari

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Political Communication ◽

Freedom Of Expression ◽

Legal Framework ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

Public Servants ◽

Public Servant ◽

International Obligations ◽

Civil And Political Rights

Michaela Banerji was a Commonwealth public servant when she was fired for sending up to 9000 messages on the public platform twitter criticising her employer; Australia’s human rights record; politicians; and public servants. The tweets did not disclose Ms Banerji’s name or occupation and all (except for one) tweet was sent in Ms Banerji’s private time. In 2019, the High Court confirmed that Ms Banerji’s tweets were not protected by the implied freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution. Ms Banerji is not alone in having her ability to communicate her political views limited by her employment with the Australian public service. All Commonwealth public servants are bound by a legal framework that curtails their ability to criticise government policies. This article argues that the current regime restricting political communication by public servants in Australia is excessive and is not consistent with Australia’s international obligations under article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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The ties that bind: family and private life as bars to the deportation of immigrants

International Journal of Law in Context ◽

10.1017/s1744552312000092 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 283-296

Author(s):

Yaël Ronen

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Family Life ◽

Private Life ◽

European Convention ◽

Political Rights ◽

Normative Framework ◽

European Court ◽

Fundamental Freedoms ◽

Civil And Political Rights ◽

Two Bodies

AbstractThis article analyses the way in which the use of the rights to family life and to private life has evolved as a bar to the deportation of immigrants. The analysis focuses on the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) with respect to the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which uses a rights-based framework; and of the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) with respect to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which uses a status-based framework. It notes the interaction between the two bodies and the attempt in each forum to modify its normative framework to follow the other's. The article further considers the implications of each normative framework for both integrated immigrants and other immigrants.

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Property Restitution in Eastern Europe: Domestic and International Human Rights Law Responses

Review of Central and East European Law ◽

10.1163/1573035042132932 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 325-363 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Mariana Karadjova

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Eastern Europe ◽

Minority Groups ◽

International Human Rights Law ◽

Political Rights ◽

European Court ◽

The Future ◽

Civil And Political Rights ◽

The Right ◽

Past Injustices

AbstractThis article presents an overview of how those East European countries that are members of the Council of Europe have approached the problems of restitution as a means of reparation for past injustices. In doing so, attention will be paid to: the entitled persons and the extent of restitution; the underlying motivations vis-à-vis the form of reparation (restitution in kind or compensation), and attitudes towards minority groups and foreigners as part of the restitution process. Emphasis will also be given to the role played by international instruments (the ECHR and its future Protocol 12, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, various UN resolutions, etc), as well as by judicial institutions (the European Court of Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee) in the evolution of the restitution process in Eastern Europe in general, and regarding such issues as equality between foreigners and nationals as well as minority and religious groups and the elaboration of an international standard of restitution as reparation for abuses of human rights in particular. The bodies of the ECHR have managed to avoid problems related to restitution and reparations for past injustices by arguing that the right of restitution is not guaranteed by art.1 of Protocol 1 to the the ECHR. But the entry into force of a new Protocol 12 to the Convention will likely result in changes being made in this thought process, at least as regards the position of foreigners. If measures denying restitution, owing to the claimant's nationality, were taken after ratifi cation of Protocol 12, the way should be opened in the future to foreigners (in addition to procedures before the UN Human Rights Committee) to more effectively defend their rights relative to such restorative measures: notably, the possibility of seizing the Strasbourg Court with claims relating to justifi cation for "unequal treatment". The right to remedy the injustices committed to the victims of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law has appeared with increasing frequency on the agenda of the UN Commission on Human Rights. Furthermore, in its recent case law, the UN Human Rights Committee has evidenced a concern over several questions relating to the respect of possessions; it has already opted for the proposition that any discrimination on the basis of nationality in restitution legislation can be deemed to be a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Lastly, after ratifi cation of Protocol 12, we can expect a link to be forged between the vision of the UN Commission on Human Rights and that of the European Court of Human Rights that may—in the future—lead to the elaboration of a common international mechanism regulating restitution as a means for the reparation of abuses of human rights.

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