scholarly journals Transitional justice, victims and human rights in the light of international law and the inter-american system of human rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 300-327
Author(s):  
Florabel Quispe Remón
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Next Of Kin ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right

The article begins by analyzing the origin and evolution of the concept "transitional justice", determining its characteristics, the context in which it was born and developed, as well as the role of the State in this process. Then it focuses attention on analyzing the development of this figure in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Human Rights System, through the work that the Inter-American Court has been carrying out since its operation, interpreting in a broad way and always pro homini, the American Convention of Human Rights. Throughout its years of operation, it has ruled on the State’s obligation to protect and guarantee human rights and to carry out the pertinent investigations in the event of their violation; as well as the recognition of the status of victims to the victims’ families and their pronouncement of the right to the truth, not as an autonomous human right, but rather as a right of the victims and their next of kin. Undoubtedly, these are aspects that have gone beyond the American Convention.

The Limits of Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Michelle Jurkovich
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Right ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Right To Food ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Right

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.

How Conditional Amnesties Can Assist Transitional Societies in Delivering on the Right to the Truth

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Julian Sarkin
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Transitional Societies ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Legal Consequences ◽  
Made In

This article explores how conditional amnesties can assist post-conflict societies to recover truth. It examines how such amnesties can be used optimally to achieve the best results as part of transitional justice mechanisms. Thus, a central question is to see how amnesties can be used for truth recovery purposes. For that reason, the status and role of amnesties, and whether such amnesties can be used to learn more about the past and assist in truth recovery is explored. The article explores what amnesties are, how prevalent they are and how amnesties can be used optimally to achieve the best results. An issue that is also explored is whether amnesties are needed for perpetrators to participate in transitional justice mechanisms. The argument that is made, in this regard, is that amnesty is absolutely necessary to persuade perpetrators to testify. If they do not have such legal protection, perpetrators fear the legal consequences that may result if they admit to crimes for which they have not been charged. Another question that is examined concerns whether amnesties, and specifically conditional amnesties, pass international law muster. This article therefore investigates the continual and extensive use of amnesty to determine whether a conditional amnesty violates international law. The article suggests how a conditional amnesty process could be structured and what difficulties such a process should avoid if perpetrators are to enter such a process.

Right to truth on serious violations of human rights in international law

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (XIX) ◽  
pp. 209-225
Author(s):  
Ilona Topa
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Next Of Kin ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
International Human ◽  
The Right

The right to truth is extensively recognized in the contemporary legal discussion, especially within the context of the rights of serious human rights violations’ victims and a broader debate on transitional justice, its aims and mechanisms. This right has directly resulted from the activities of international human rights protection bodies. Human rights courts, while dealing with the cases of torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances has established that states are obliged to disclose the truth about past events, and individuals has the right to require a comprehensive and accurate information on the fate of their next of kin. The aim of this article is to analyse the standing of the right to truth in the contemporary international law. Therefore, it describes the development of this concept in international human rights law and examines what is the actual scope, who is entitled to and what are the means of execution of the right to truth.

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights under the 2010 Constitutional Dispensation

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-226
Author(s):  
Bonolo Ramadi Dinokopila ◽  
Rhoda Igweta Murangiri
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
National Commission ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Institutional Perspective ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
National Human ◽  
The Status ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights

This article examines the transformation of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and discusses the implications of such transformation on the promotion and protection of human rights in Kenya. The article is an exposition of the powers of the Commission and their importance to the realisation of the Bill of Rights under the 2010 Kenyan Constitution. This is done from a normative and institutional perspective with particular emphasis on the extent to which the UN Principles Relating to the Status of National Institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles, 1993) have been complied with. The article highlights the role of national human rights commissions in transformative and/or transitional justice in post-conflict Kenya. It also explores the possible complementary relationship(s) between the KNCHR and other Article 59 Commissions for the better enforcement of the bill of rights.

The Origins of Human Rights in Global Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence O. Gostin ◽  
Benjamin Mason Meier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Global Health ◽  
International Law ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Right To Health Care ◽  
Global Standards ◽  
The Right

This chapter introduces the foundational importance of human rights for global health, providing a theoretical basis for the edited volume by laying out the role of human rights under international law as a normative basis for public health. By addressing public health harms as human rights violations, international law has offered global standards by which to frame government responsibilities and evaluate health practices, providing legal accountability in global health policy. The authors trace the historical foundations for understanding the development of human rights and the role of human rights in protecting and promoting health since the end of World War II and the birth of the United Nations. Examining the development of human rights under international law, the authors introduce the right to health as an encompassing right to health care and underlying determinants of health, exploring this right alongside other “health-related human rights.”

scholarly journals Roles of the Courts in New Zealand in Giving Effect to International Human Rights - with Some History

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth J Keith
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Common Law ◽  
General Effect ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Right ◽  
Domestic Law

The Right Honourable Sir Kenneth Keith was the fourth speaker at the NZ Institute of International Affairs Seminar. In this article he describes and reflects upon the role of courts and judges in relation to the advancement of human rights, an issue covered in K J Keith (ed) Essays on Human Rights (Sweet and Maxwell, Wellington, 1968). The article is divided into two parts. The first part discusses international lawmakers attempting to protect individual groups of people from 1648 to 1948, including religious minorities and foreign traders, slaves, aboriginal natives, victims of armed conflict, and workers. The second part discusses how from 1945 to 1948, there was a shift in international law to universal protection. The author notes that while treaties are not part of domestic law, they may have a constitutional role, be relevant in determining the common law, give content to the words of a statute, help interpret legislation which is in line with a treaty, help interpret legislation which is designed to give general effect to a treaty (but which is silent on the particular matter), and help interpret and affect the operation of legislation to which the international text has no apparent direct relation. 

The Right to Health

2018 ◽  
pp. 231-264
Author(s):  
Sandra Fredman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

Is health a human right? Many would maintain that it is not. On this view health and ill-health are due to natural causes, not to State actions. Others are concerned that health raises too many polycentric problems to be dealt with through justiciable human rights. These contestations have shaped the way in which the right to health is understood. Section II sketches out the health context. Section III considers jurisdictions in which there is no express right to health, but a right has been derived from rights to life, personal integrity, or privacy. Section IV contrasts this approach with jurisdictions with an express right to health. Section V examines the role of the right to equality, while section VI focuses on reproductive health. The final section returns to the challenges of polycentricity and the extent to which a justiciable right can address systemic issues rather than individual rights to medication.

Re-Conceptualizing the Right to Seek and Obtain Asylum in International Law

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-332
Author(s):  
Salvatore Fabio Nicolosi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Court ◽  
Triggering Factor ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Rights Standards

Over the past few years the issue of asylum has progressively become interrelated with human rights. Asylum-related stresses, including refugee flows and mass displacements, have mitigated the traditional idea of asylum as an absolute state right, in so far as international human rights standards of protection require that states may have the responsibility to provide asylum seekers with protection. Following this premise, the article argues that the triggering factor of such overturning is significantly represented by the judicial approach to the institution of asylum by regional human rights courts. After setting the background on the interrelation of asylum with human rights, this article conceptualises the right to asylum as derived from the principle of non-refoulement and to this extent it delves into the role of the two regional human rights courts, notably the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), in order to explore whether an emerging judicial cross-fertilisation may contribute to re-conceptualisation of the right to asylum from a human rights perspective.

The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Armed Conflict

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

TheHandbookconsists of 32 Chapters in seven parts. Part I provides the historical background and sets out some of the contemporary challenges. Part II considers the relevant sources of international law. Part III describes the different legal regimes: land warfare, air warfare, maritime warfare, the law of occupation, the law applicable to peace operations, and the law of neutrality. Part IV introduces key concepts in international humanitarian law: weapons and the notion of superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering, the principle of distinction, proportionality, genocide and crimes against humanity, grave breaches and war crimes, internal armed conflict. Part V looks at key rights: the right to life, the prohibition on torture, the right to fair trial, economic, social and cultural rights, the protection of the environment, the protection of cultural property, and the human rights of the members of the armed forces. Part VI covers key issues such as: the use of force, terrorism, unlawful combatants, the application of human rights in times of armed conflict, forced migration, and issues of gender. Part VII deals with accountability issues including those related to private security companies, the need to focus on armed groups, as well as questions of state responsibility brought before national courts, and finally, the book addresses issues related to transitional justice.

scholarly journals Facing financialization in the housing sector: A human right to adequate housing for all

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-114
Author(s):  
Ingrid Leijten ◽  
Kaisa de Bel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Wealth Accumulation ◽  
Housing Conditions ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Social Good ◽  
The Right

Housing is increasingly seen as a vehicle for wealth accumulation rather than a social good. ‘Financialization’ of housing refers to the expanding and dominant role of financial markets and corporations in the field of housing, leading to unaffordable and insufficient housing and discrimination. Although clearly linked to the right to adequate housing, financialization and its effects are not often viewed from a human rights perspective. This article fleshes out this important link by illuminating the standards set in relation to the right to adequate housing enshrined in Article 11(1) ICESCR. It is shown that recently, human rights bodies have confronted the issue of financialization more directly, translating general requirements to this particular issue. Moreover, efforts at UN level are mirrored in initiatives at the local level, signalling the beginning of a shift towards a paradigm that complies with human rights. The financialization of housing and the response of human rights also allow for addressing a more general issue, namely the potential of majority protection in times of human rights backlash. In this regard, it is worth emphasising that human rights such as the right to adequate housing protect not only the extreme poor. In the context of financialization, this may contribute to better housing conditions as well as reconnect people to their human rights.

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