scholarly journals VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES IN THE SPHERE OF HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION

10.23856/4321 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 164-171
Author(s):  
Anastasiia Demidenko

The article is devoted to the volunteer movement in the sphere of human rights protection and cooperation of volunteers with non-governmental human rights organizations. It is pointed out that due to the activization of civil society and the growing number of violations of human rights on the international arena, this issue needs to be studied in more detail. In order to study the nature of volunteer organizations, a retrospective historical analysis of the phenomenon of volunteering since its appearance has been conducted. Several directions of historical development of the volunteer movement are compared. In order to understand the role of volunteer movements in the protection of human rights, the definition of the concept is proposed and explained, their functions and features as well as the main directions of activity are singled out. The comparison of concepts, functions and roles of volunteer and non- governmental human rights organizations is made. Also, the definition of the concept of “non-governmental human rights organizations” is given, on the base of which the common features of the above elements of civil society are defined. Examples of state regulation of volunteering activities in European countries, as well as the activities of volunteers in the sphere of human rights protection and cooperation of the latter with non-governmental human rights organizations are analyzed. The importance of cooperation between volunteer organizations and NGOs is also emphasized, as well as the mutual benefit for these organizations.

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 173-198
Author(s):  
Stella Margariti

The main argument of this article is that defining international terrorism will further the protection of human rights in the context of counter-terrorism. For this purpose, it will be shown that the transnational legal system under which counter-terrorism operates is fraught with problems regarding human rights protection. Secondly, it will be shown how domestic counter-terrorism legislation can become a breeding ground for serious human rights violations, when based on too broad or otherwise problematic definitions of terrorism. Finally, it will be explored how human rights protection has been addressed so far by the relevant bodies of the United Nations and to what extent, if finalised, an internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism in the framework of the UN Comprehensive Convention will contribute to a fuller enjoyment of rights in a counterterrorism context.


2021 ◽  

Regional human rights mechanism are now in place covering nearly all five continents with the notable exception of Australia. Regional and international human rights protection are not meant to thwart each other. On the contrary, the regional protection of human rights is intended to back up and strengthen the international one by translating human rights into local languages and supporting them with additional protective mechanisms like commissions and courts that enforce regional human rights documents. In this volume, five experts from various continents will introduce regional human rights protection systems in Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and Australia providing an overview of the regional protections vis-à-vis the international one and then contextualising it in specific country context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 513
Author(s):  
Pradikta Andi Alvat

This study aims to know how political development of legal protection of human rights in Indonesia and political objectives of the legal protection of human rights itself. The research method using normative juridical approach. Specification of the research is descriptive. Provide an overview and critical analysis and conclusions of the research object. Source data using secondary data sources through books and legislation. The data collection method through the study of literature. Analysis of data using qualitative approach. The results showed that the political development of the legal protection of human rights has undergone discourse tight since the formulation of the Constitution and found basic juridical-constitutional is ideal since the reform era with the birth of Chapter XA in the constitution on human rights, born Law of Human Rights, and the formation of the court of HAM. The purpose of a political human rights protection law contains three dimensions, namely the dimensions of philosophical, sociological dimension and juridical dimension.Keywords: Protection Of Human Rights; Political Law; State Law.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magdalena Tabernacka

The ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence in Poland was preceded by a heated debate. From the very beginning it was be object of political battles between the conservative and liberal circles. Culturally and socially conditioned position of women has influenced its operation and the scope of its implementation. The Convention is a universally binding tool which guarantees the protection of human rights in events of violence against the woman and children. The case of this Convention in Poland proofs the existence of a universal European understanding of human rights protection standards. The Convention thus has a protective function not only for individuals but also, in a broader context, for the common European cultural identity.


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Sorial

In Between Facts and Norms, Habermas articulates a system of rights, including human rights, within the democratic constitutional state. For Habermas, while human rights, like other subjective rights have moral content, they do not structurally belong to a moral system; nor should they be grounded in one. Instead, human rights belong to a positive and coercive legal order upon which individuals can make actionable legal claims. Habermas extends this argument to include international human rights, which are realised within the context of a cosmopolitan legal order. The aim of this paper is to assess the relevance of law as a mechanism for securing human rights protection. I argue that positive law does make a material difference to securing individual human rights and to cultivating and augmenting a general rights culture both nationally and globally. I suggest that Habermas' model of law presents the most viable way of negotiating the tensions that human rights discourse gives rise to: the tensions between morality and law, between legality and politics, and between the national and international contexts of human rights protection.


Author(s):  
Nigel Rodley

This chapter considers the background to, and current developments concerning the manner in which international law has engaged with the protection of human rights, including both civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights. It looks at historical, philosophical, and political factors which have shaped our understanding of human rights and the current systems of international protection. It focuses on the systems of protection developed by and through the United Nations through the ‘International Bill of Rights’, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN human rights treaties and treaty bodies, and the UN Special Procedures as well as the work of the Human Rights Council. It also looks at the systems of regional human rights protection which have been established.


Author(s):  
Nussberger Angelika

This introductory chapter provides a background of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a multilateral treaty based on humanism and rule of law. Similar to the—albeit non-binding—Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the ECHR is a document that marks a change in philosophy and gives a new definition of the responsibility of the State towards the individual. It fixes basic values in times of change and paves the way towards reconciliation in Europe. Unlike in a peace treaty, not all wartime enemies participate in its elaboration, but, one by one, all the European States accede to it, signalling their consent to the values fixed by a small community of States in the early 1950s. Seven decades later, forty-seven European States have ratified the Convention. Admittedly, the new start based on common values could not prevent the outbreak of violent conflicts between Member States. At the same time, the resurgence of anti-democratic tendencies could not be successfully banned in all Member States, but such tendencies could be stigmatized as grave human rights violations in binding judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Thus, it is not surprising that the European model of human rights protection has been attractive and inspirational for other parts of the world. Nevertheless, there was and is a debate in some Member States to withdraw from the Convention as the Court’s jurisprudence is seen to be too intrusive on national sovereignty.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 331-335
Author(s):  
Jimena Reyes

Until recently, the United Nations and regional systems of human rights protection had shown considerable reluctance to address human rights violations resulting from corruption. Instead, these actors would underline the negative impacts of corruption on human rights without identifying corruption itself as a violation of human rights. Since 2017, however, this has begun to shift. The UN, regional human rights institutions, and civil society have begun to devise concrete ways for human rights institutions and instruments to better contribute to the fight against corruption. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“the Court”), in particular, has taken preliminary steps to establish a legal link between corruption and human rights violations.


2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 611-623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among the women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture.What is so fundamental in terms of the protection of human rights in Europe that it requires the same standards for all countries and what, by contrast, would be better dealt with by each State's organs in line with verbigratia Michael Walzer's-related notion of “thick morality”?. Where should the line be drawn between unity and diversity notwithstanding the resulting risk of human rights cultural relativism associated to the latter?. On what grounds could the axiomatic universality of human rights possibly be connoted in a continent which prides itself on possessing the most developed regional system for the protection of human rights world-wide in view of the resulting risk of legal contagion to other systems for the protection of human rights and, even, to general international law that such a practice can trigger?. At the end of the day, these are the sort of questions that the study of the margin-of- appreciation doctrine raises. The Trojan Horse-like character of the Strasbourg's judge-made margin-of-appreciation doctrine within the European human rights protection system has long since bothered human rights lawyers. Cases of reliance on this review doctrine have been generally criticised as denials of justice for individuals, abdications by the Court of its duty of adjudication in difficult or sensitive issues or as a judicial diluting technique of the strict conditions laid down in the European Convention of Human Rights. This line of criticism, aimed at what from the viewpoint of some occupants of the bench is seen as “a well established and legitimate part of the convention's jurisprudence”, has been reinforced by the entry of 21 new Eastern and Central European contracting parties to the Council of Europe following the 1989-1991 events. With a current membership of 46 States, all of which have ratified the 1950 Rome Convention, it is further feared that the doctrine will increasingly become an open door for abusive limitations in the exercise of human rights in states who traditionally leaned towards human rights cultural relativism. Against this background, I will briefly look into the technical criteria used by Strasbourg's judicial interpreters to factually implement this “much maligned notion” or, as one commentator has put it, this “manière pseudo-technique d'évoquer le pouvoir discrétionnaire que les organes de Strasbourg ont estimé reconnu aux Etats par la Convention dans certains cas”. I will, secondly, provide a basic overview of the general doctrinal positions one can adopt regarding this long debated question.


2003 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 237-270
Author(s):  
Alexander Orakhelashvili

It is commonly assumed that the European Convention on Human Rights, being a treaty of specific nature, embodies elements of European public order. However, there seems to be no authoritative or generally accepted definition of the public order of Europe, of its essential components, and of its relationship with the notion of international public order. This article will examine these questions. In pursuing this goal, the law-enforcement resources accumulated within the European system of human rights protection will be examined in the context of interaction between the public order of Europe as part of the law of the European Convention, and international public order as part of general international law.


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