Part VI Human Rights and General International Law, Ch.33 Transnational Litigation: Jurisdiction and Immunities

This article examines the issues of jurisdiction and immunities in transnational human rights litigation. It discusses the bases of asserting jurisdiction and highlights the problem in achieving consensus about the rules governing foreign official immunity. It analyses several relevant court cases including claims against foreign states, against current or former foreign officials and against non-state actors. This article argues that the horizontal enforcement of human rights norms by national courts carries the potential for both salutary and disruptive effects. It explains that while it can provide an avenue for victims of human rights abuses to obtain redress for their injuries, it can also interfere with the conduct of foreign relations with states that do not recognize the validity of national proceedings.

Part V Institutions and Actors, Ch.28 Universality and the Growth of Regional Systems

This article focuses on the regional human rights systems. It suggests that the emergence of these systems constitutes an important dimension of broader participation in the international human rights project because they provide platforms where people from all parts of the world can potentially make their voices heard in the global human rights discourse. It compares the regional human rights systems of Europe, the Americas and Africa and considers other smaller initiatives such as the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Part V Institutions and Actors, Ch.25 From Commission to the Council: Evolution of UN Charter Bodies

This article examines the evolution of the United Nations� (UN) human rights agency from the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) into the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). It explains that UNHRC was created in March 2006 to replace the UNCHR and become the world�s premier human rights body. It evaluates the effectiveness of the UNHRC�s peer-review human rights mechanism called the Universal Periodic Review. This article also offers some suggestions on how to improve the performance of the UNHRC including changes in size and distribution of membership, membership criteria, voting patterns and participation of non-state actors.

Part IV Normative Evolution, Ch.23 Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes

This article examines the relation between jus cogens and erga omnes obligations in the context of international human rights law. It discusses the content of jus cogens and its relevance within the domestic legal order and explains the relevant provisions of Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 (VCLT). This article highlights the increasing formal recognition in state practice and doctrine of a hierarchy of norms in international law in the form of jus cogens which indicates increased recognition of core values throughout the international community of states.

Part III Structural Principles, Ch.20 Democracy and the Rule of Law

This article examines the role of the rule of law and democracy in international human rights law. It discusses the legal nature and the formal recognition of the rule of law and democracy. It explains that that rule of law and democracy are elements that constitute essential pillars promoting real enjoyment of human rights but they are dependent on the general conditions prevailing within society. This article highlights the importance of the supervisory roles of international bodies in ensuring the effectiveness of the guarantees set forth in international instruments for the protection of human rights.

Part III Structural Principles, Ch.14 Human Dignity

This article examines the issue of human dignity in relation to human rights. It analyses the functions and principle of human dignity and its use in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments. It suggests that human dignity seems to help justify expansive interpretations of human rights and strengthens the centrality and importance of the right in question and limiting possible exceptions or limitations to that right. This article also contends that the difficulty of reaching greater consensus on the meaning and implications of human dignity in international human rights law may be attributed to the fact that it refers to both a foundational premise of human rights and to a principle that affect interpretation and application of specific human rights.

Part II Historical and Legal Sources, Ch.12 Social Justice, Rights, and Labour

This article examines the issues of social justice, social rights, and the international labour movement in relation to international human rights. It traces the history of the emergence of international labour law and describes the action and innovation of the International Labor Organization (ILO). It suggests that the ILO�s structural machinery and guiding principles served as the global reference point for setting and supervising standards on workers� rights, freedoms, and entitlements.

Part I Theoretical Foundations, Ch.5 The Psychological Foundations of Human Rights

This article examines the role of psychology in the historical foundation of human rights. It provides an account of the psychological capacities that humans use to identify and respond to rights and analyses the distinctive ways that humans reason about rights. It also discusses the basic psychology of rights and obligations and considers the place of the psychology of rights and obligations in a contemporary evolutionary framework. This article argues that while humans have an innate psychological capacity to identify and respond to rights, the more specific phenomenon of respect for human rights is at least in part a culturally emergent phenomenon.

Part I Theoretical Foundations, Ch.1 Religion

This article examines the relation between religion and human rights. It analyses the contribution of religion to human rights and identifies the religious sources of human rights. It provides a comparative analysis of the development of human rights beliefs and norms in different religions including Islam, Judaism and Christianity. This article contends that religions must attend to human rights to affirm human dignity and that human rights need religious sources to survive and flourish.

Part VII Assessments, Ch.37 Compliance

This article examines the compliance of States with international human rights law. It explains the distinction between judicial and non-judicial compliance mechanisms, focusing on the United Nations (UN) in the context of non-judicial mechanisms and the Council of Europe and the Organization of American States (OAS) in the context of judicial mechanisms. It highlights the central role of the principle of subsidiarity in all international mechanisms for human rights protection and explains that this principle provides a conceptual tool for understanding the relation between the role of states in human rights protection and the role of the international human rights protection mechanisms that states create at the global and regional levels.