scholarly journals Recognizing and Implementing International Human Rights Standards in Domestic Legislation: An Exposure Under Ukrainian Law

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-176
Author(s):  
Vitalii Oleksandrovych Serohin ◽  
Svitlana Hryhorivna Serohina ◽  
Liliya Mykolayivna Gryshko ◽  
Kateryna Petrivna Danicheva

Everything about human right is inalienable void of violation from the human race. It is therefore that responsibility of the international community in ensuring the effective preservation and respect of these rights without any threat of violations. In ensuring its recognition and implementation, international standards have been established where there is the need of States parties to these international human right treaties in ensuring its incorporation in its various domestic legislations. The content and specific features of the introduction of international human rights standards into national legislation have been analyzed in the article. The methodological basis of research is a set of general scientific and special methods, in particular, dialectical, historical-legal, epistemological, comparative-legal. International standards for the protection of human rights have been defined as principles and norms enshrined in international regulatory legal acts that define fundamental human rights and freedoms, the obligation of the State to respect them, to assist in their realization, preservation and protection against unlawful encroachments, and to establish liability for their violations and methods of protection. It has been clarified that the procedure of implementation of international human rights standards into national legislation includes the following stages: (i) recognition of human rights by the State and their enshrinement in national legislation; (ii) institutionalization of the standard of human rights protection; (iii) bringing the current legislation in line with the international human rights standard and interpreting the latter; (iv) establishment of measures and means of protection and defense of human rights; (v) determining the procedure for the realization of the enshrined right; (vi) control over the observance of the international human rights standard.

2000 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-136
Author(s):  
Frances Raday

The classical concept of protection of human rights is generally perceived as appertaining to the public sphere. It is concerned with the protection of the individual against the power of the State. However, current voices are heard asserting that human rights are not confined to that sphere. It is claimed that individuals are entitled to respect for their human rights not only as against the power of the state but also in their dealings with one another. Introducing human rights jurisprudence to the disciplines of private law would limit the autonomy of an individual where exercise of that autonomy would infringe the human rights of another person. Under this proposal, the rules of such fields as contract law, company law, torts law and family law, would be subject to human rights principles.The privatising of human rights is taken by this author to infer the attribution of a review jurisdiction to the courts to override provisions of private law the application of which would bring about infringement of the human rights of individuals. It is in the nature of constitutional human rights protection to transfer the power to determine the limits of rights and powers away from the legislature and bestow it on the courts. By this conception of privatising human rights, obviously, not every protection offered by a state to individuals against interference or injury by private persons or bodies can be classified as an application of human rights in the private sphere. The protections provided by the criminal law or by torts, contract and labour law are not privatised human rights in this sense. The clarification is especially important in order to distinguish the provisions of international human rights law from a concept of constitutional privatisation. The international human rights provisions are in essence directives to governments and may be implemented by legislation. Only where they become directly applicable against private persons in the courts of the state party to the Convention can they be regarded as instances of privatising human rights. The perception of a right as a privatised human right rather than a mere application of the norms of the legal system is hence based on the source of the right in the constitutional hierarchy. In the analysis which ensues, the assumption will be made that there is a privatised human right only where that right derives directly from a constitutional power bestowed on courts. In this article, I shall employ the phrase ‘privatising human rights’ to denote this concept. As it will emerge, the use of this term is appropriate not only to denote the process but also to raise policy analogies to a more commonly known form of “privatising”—the privatising of economic activities of the state.


Author(s):  
Vitaliy B. Kovalchuk ◽  
Iryna M. Zharovska ◽  
Bohdan I. Gutiv ◽  
Bogdana B. Melnychenko ◽  
Iryna O. Panchuk

At present, both the international and the regional levels of human rights protection lack an express definition of the positive obligation of states to protect human rights. Similarly, the doctrine lacks a unified opinion regarding this concept. For quite a long time, human rights were considered as such that give rise to so-called negative obligations of states to refrain from human rights violations. However, with the development of international human rights law, it is increasingly recognised that human rights also give rise to positive obligations of the state to take active measures to ensure these rights. Such obligations usually derive from international human rights treaties or from the interpretation of international judicial bodies that monitor the implementation of corresponding international treaties. Therefore, it is crucial for the doctrine and practice of international law in the field of human rights protection to analyse the positive obligations of the state, which are consolidated in international treaties and the practice of international judicial bodies. The purpose of this study is to analyse human rights and positive obligations of the state in the context of regional mechanisms for the protection of human rights. Among the general scientific methods, the study used the analysis and synthesis, as well as deduction, induction, prediction, modeling, analogy and other general scientific methods. A thorough study of the positive obligations of the state would be impossible even without the use of special methods of study and cognition, which include comparative legal, historical and legal, technical, and structural-functional methods. In particular, one of the leading research methods was the comparative legal method, which was used to study the practice of regional mechanisms for the protection of human rights. The study provides an overview of the modern interpretation of positive obligations of states. Specifically, this study focuses on the practice of the European, Inter-American and African Human Rights Courts in the context of applying the state's positive obligations


2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodor Rathgeber

While the ASEAN Charter of 2007 heralded an era of improved democracy, human rights protection and good governance in accordance with the rule of law, the reality on the ground tells a different story. While all of the trappings of a human rights mechanism are in place, the normative and protective capacity of the regime is ambiguous at best. The adoption of core international human rights treaties by ASEAN member states presents an ambiguous picture, one which reveals significant variations between the ten countries. The purported institutionalisation of international human rights standards since 2007 in the region via the creation of an ASEAN human rights mechanism in that year is betrayed by the poor condition of actual protection of human rights at the national and regional level. The article analyses the situation on the ground in light of the normative obligations and aspirations of the states.


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.


BESTUUR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Saidah Fasihah Binti Che Yussoff ◽  
Rohaida Nordin

<p>Malaysia is likely to introduce new laws on freedom of information. However, the important questions are whether the said laws are effective and will have enough bite with the public looking forward to opening government policy. Freedom of information has developed under international human rights law as the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart knowledge and ideas through media, regardless of any frontier. This paper aims to examine freedom of expression under the international realm, scrutinize the said freedom in the Malaysian legal framework, and discuss the proposed enactment of freedom of information laws in Malaysia in conformity with international human rights law. This research uses the qualitative research method. This paper concludes that freedom of information in Malaysia is severely impeded by the enforcement of the Official Secret Act. This paper calls for the repeal or amendment to the Act in conformity with international standards.  </p><p><strong>Keywords</strong><strong>:</strong> Expression; Freedom; Expression; Human Right.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 753-777
Author(s):  
Vera Shikhelman

Abstract In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of research about the implementation of international law. However, there has been almost no empirical research about implementing decisions of international human rights institutions. The decisions of those institutions are usually regarded as soft law, and states do not have a clear legal obligation to implement them. In this article, I bring original empirical data about how and when states implement decisions of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) in individual communications. I hypothesize that the following factors influence the readiness of states to implement the views of the HRC: (i) the level of democracy and human rights protection in the state; (ii) internal capacity; (iii) strength of civil society; (iv) type of remedy; (v) representation on the HRC; (6) subject matter of the communication. I find that the most important factor for implementing remedies granted by the Committee is the high human rights score of the state. The internal capacity of the state is also significant but to a lesser extent than found in previous studies. Also, I find a certain connection between the state being represented on the HRC and its willingness to implement the remedies.


Afrika Focus ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Brems

Among the many human rights conventions adopted by the UN, seven are known — together with their additional protocols — as the core international human rights instruments: - The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination;- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; - The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women;- The Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; - The Convention on the Rights of the Child; - The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. The main international control mechanism under these conventions is what may be considered the standard mechanism in international human rights protection: state reporting before an international committee. An initial report is due usually one year after joining the treaty and afterwards, reports are due periodically (every four or five years). The international committees examine the reports submitted by the state parties. In the course of this examination they include information from other sources, such as the press, other United Nations materials or NGO information. They also hold a meeting with representatives of the state submitting the report. At the end of this process the committee issues 'concluding observations' or 'concluding comments'. This paper focuses on the experience of one state — Ethiopia - with the seven core human rights treaties. This should allow the reader to gain insights both into the human rights situation in Ethiopia and in the functioning of the United Nations human rights protection system.Key Words: United Nations, Human Rights Conventions, State Reporting, Human Rights Situation in Ethiopia 


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
D. V. Ivanov ◽  
V. P. Pchelintseva

Introduction. The article is concerned with international protection and promotion of human rights by the OIC. Recent developments in the international activity of the organization serve as the thematic justification of the study in the first place, as they reveal certain modifications in its approach to human rights. The study covers several theoretical and practical problems of international public law and national legal orders.Materials and Methods. Methodology of the study includes general scientific methods, such as scientific assessment and description, scientific analysis and synthesis, abstraction, scientific explanation etc., and special methods of jurisprudence, such as historical, comparative and dogmatic methods. For the purposes of the study, universal agreements and soft law acts as well as OIC acts on human rights were studied alongside with UN databases and scientific and analytical papers on Islamic law and international public law.Results. The study revealed that activity of the OIC and its member states in the field of protection and promotion of human rights shows more compliance with the universal standards and is likely to continue in that direction. It outlines the pluralistic approach of the OIC to human rights teachings and its concurrent commitment to Islamic and universal human rights concepts. Modifications in the OIC protection of human rights of vulnerable social groups are explored.Discussion and conclusion. Activity of the OIC in the field of international human rights protection is analyzed from the standpoint of cultural relativism, the views on possible achievement of compatibility of human rights in Islam and universal standards are supported, the approach of the OIC to human rights is considered to reflect the particularities of approaches to human rights of Islamic states and international public law. At the same time ineffectiveness of certain human rights protection measures taken by some mechanisms of protection of human rights of the OIC are pointed out.


Afrika Focus ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-74
Author(s):  
Eva Brems

Ethiopia before the United Nations Treaty Monitoring Bodies Among the many human rights conventions adopted by the UN, seven are known – together with their additional protocols – as the core international human rights instruments: ‒ The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; ‒ The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; ‒ The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; ‒ The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women; ‒ The Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; ‒ The Convention on the Rights of the Child; ‒ The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. The main international control mechanism under these conventions is what may be considered the standard mechanism in international human rights protection: state reporting before an international committee. An initial report is due usually one year after joining the treaty and afterwards, reports are due periodically (every four or five years). The international committees examine the reports submitted by the state parties. In the course of this examination they include information from other sources, such as the press, other United Nations materials or NGO information. They also hold a meeting with representatives of the state submitting the report. At the end of this process the committee issues 'concluding observations' or 'concluding comments'. This paper focuses on the experience of one state – Ethiopia – with the seven core human rights treaties. This should allow the reader to gain insights both into the human rights situation in Ethiopia and in the functioning of the United Nations human rights protection system.


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