scholarly journals International Human Rights in Czech Legal Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Petr Kilian ◽  
Ivo Pospíšil ◽  
Hubert Smekal

Summary The paper presents novel data on international human rights in the Czech legal education. The importance of international human rights treaties and case-law of human rights bodies in the domestic practice gradually increases, therefore the students of Czech law schools should be familiar with the grounds of the sub-discipline, especially with the interpretative techniques used by international human rights bodies. The paper categorizes the approaches which the Czech law faculties employ as regards educating students in international human rights field and evaluates advantages and disadvantages of the approaches implemented by individual law schools. Finally, the paper identifies weak spots in Czech legal curricula and proposes some ideas for improvement.

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kris Gledhill

<p>Whilst clinical programmes are an established and core feature of legal education in the USA, and play a significant role in various other jurisdictions, they are essentially absent from New Zealand. The existence of a marked difference is itself a reason to investigate whether experiential learning should have a place in the curriculum of New Zealand’s law schools. This is done by examining briefly the growth of clinical legal education in order to illuminate its purpose; and then considering whether structural differences mean that this does not resonate as much in New Zealand. It is suggested that there are indeed some reasons for caution, in particular that there is a concern around having a two-tier system of legal provision. But it is also suggested that an international human rights clinic could surmount these reasons for caution; and a prospective design for such a programme is developed and its ability to secure the needs of students and clients is assessed.</p>


Author(s):  
Steven Wheatley

International Human Rights Law has emerged as an academic subject in its own right, separate from, but still related to, International Law. This book explains the distinctive nature of the new discipline by examining the influence of the moral concept of human rights on general international law. Rather than make use of moral philosophy or political theory, the work explains the term ‘human rights’ by examining its usage in international law practice, on the understanding that words are given meaning through their use. Relying on complexity theory to make sense of the legal practice in the United Nations, the core human rights treaties, and customary international law, The Idea of International Human Rights Law shows how a moral concept of human rights emerged, and then influenced the international law doctrine and practice on human rights, a fact that explains the fragmentation of international law and the special nature of International Human Rights Law.


Author(s):  
Tilman Rodenhäuser

Chapter 5 adds to the contemporary discourse on human rights obligations of non-state armed groups by showing that in many situations, there is a clear legal need for these obligations. This chapter first engages in the debate on whether and to what extent certain human rights treaties address armed groups directly. Second, it shows that under the law of state responsibility, states are generally not responsible for human rights violations committed by non-state entities. Third, it recalls that under international human rights law, states have an obligation to protect human rights against violations committed by armed groups. However, it argues that because this cannot be a strict obligation but is one that depends on states’ capacities and the particular circumstances, often this framework cannot adequately protect individuals against human rights violations by armed groups. The result is a legal and practical need for human rights obligations of non-state armed groups.


Author(s):  
Felice D Gaer

Longstanding proposals to strengthen implementation of the international human rights treaties have often focused on procedural reforms such as harmonizing methods of work or consolidating ten treaty monitoring bodies into one. This article reviews past reform efforts and then considers proposals to create stronger individual petition mechanisms—including a ‘world court’—as a way of strengthening human rights implementation. After discussing these proposals, the author offers additional ways to make the system more effective and efficient. She rejects the oft-suggested proposal to create a ‘world court’ for human rights, noting legal, organizational, logistical, and financial obstacles. Rather than rushing to tear down the current treaty body system, the author offers a proposal for determining how consolidation of petition proceedings might affect normative standards.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasiliki Saranti

Economic, social and cultural rights have borne the brunt of the recent economic crisis and the austerity measures adopted to counter it. Due to their gradual implementation and the need of positive measures to implement them, they were the first to be attacked. After discussing the possible ways of applying economic, social and cultural rights in the first part of the essay, I will then examine their application during economic crises with a special reference to Greece focusing mainly on two fields, labour rights and social security rights, and the case-law produced by international human rights bodies in that respect.


Author(s):  
Gauthier de Beco

This book examines what international human rights law has gained from the new elements in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons (CRPD). It explores how the CRPD is intricately bound up with other international instruments by studying the relationship between the Convention rights and those protected by other human rights treaties as well as the overall objectives of the UN. Using a social model lens on disability, the book shows how the Convention sheds new light on the very notion of human rights. In order to so, the book provides a theoretical framework which explicitly integrates disability into international human rights law. It explains how the CRPD challenges the legal subject by drawing attention to distinct forms of embodiment, before introducing the idea of the ‘dis-abled subject’ stemming from a recognition that all individuals encounter disability-related issues in the course of their lives. The book also examines how to apply this theoretical framework to a number of rights and highlights the consequences for the implementation of human rights treaties as a whole. It not only builds upon available literature straddling different fields, which include disability studies and legal and political theory, but also draws upon the recommendations of treaty bodies and reports of UN agencies as well as disabled people’s organisations. The book provides an agenda-setting analysis for all human rights experts by inviting them to appreciate the benefits of placing disabled people at the heart of international human rights law.


Author(s):  
Tarlach McGonagle

The chapter outlines how ICERD has traditionally had an outlier status among international human rights treaties in respect of racist hate speech due to its heavy reliance on the criminalisation of certain types of expression in order to combat racism. The recent General Recommendation 35 recognises that ICERD as a living instrument must be better synchronised and informed by contemporary understandings of racist hate speech, its causes, manifestations and impact.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document