Human rights treaty

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Human rights treaties are multilaterally concluded international agreements. They primarily codify individual rights, but they also contain collective rights such as the right to self-determination of peoples. The treaties create human rights instruments which, in contrast to the instruments based on the UN Charter, only apply to those states that have acceded to the treaties by ratification .

Since the end of 2006, within the framework of the United Nations, there have been nine human rights treaties in the narrower sense, which all states can ratify. They contain verification procedures that are incumbent on the UN treaty bodies used for this purpose . Some, but not all, contracts are supplemented by additional agreements, so-called option protocols, which usually deal with individual complaint procedures.

In addition, Europe, America and Africa have agreed on regional human rights treaties that vary in scope and are open to all countries in these regions. The numerous agreements reached by the International Labor Organization since 1912 are not dealt with here .

Overview of the human rights treaties

The following agreements have come into force within the framework of the United Nations:

  1. the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of December 16, 1966 (in short: "Social Pact"; entered into force January 3, 1976 )
  2. the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of December 16, 1966 (in short: "Civil Pact"; entered into force March 23, 1976)
  3. International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Abbreviation: ICERD, abbreviation: "Racial Discrimination Convention ") of March 7, 1966
  4. the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (abbreviation: CEDAW, in short: "Women's Rights Convention ") of December 18, 1979
  5. the UN Convention against Torture of December 10, 1984
  6. the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of November 20, 1989
  7. the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families ("Migrant Workers Convention" for short) of December 18, 1990
  8. the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (abbreviation CRPD, abbreviation: "Disability Rights Convention ") of December 13, 2006
  9. the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance of December 20, 2006

The regional human rights treaties include the following:

Probably the best-known human rights document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , is not a treaty under international law, but a resolution of the UN General Assembly and therefore not legally binding, but a political announcement and declaration of intent by the UN General Assembly of December 10, 1948. Because of its universal recognition and permanent affirmation, however, it is regarded as part of customary international law . Together with the social and civil pact, one speaks of the International Bill of Human Rights as a basic code of the international community of states on human rights.

The genocide convention of December 9, 1948 is also relevant to human rights, but it is not about the rights of individual individuals like the other agreements. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in The Hague of July 17, 1998 relates primarily to serious and systematic crimes against humanity, and only secondarily to human rights. The Geneva Refugee Convention is one of the international humanitarian law agreements .

Acceptance and ratifications

The most successful human rights treaty is the Convention on the Rights of the Child . It was ratified by all UN states with the exception of the USA , most recently by Somalia on October 1, 2015 . The most comprehensive agreements in terms of content - the social pact and the civil pact - had been ratified by 153 and 156 states respectively by 2006. This includes all permanent members of the UN Security Council - with the exception of the US, who stayed away from the social pact. Only the Migrant Workers Convention, with only 34 ratifications, falls significantly behind the other human rights conventions. Germany , Austria and Switzerland have acceded to all agreements with the exception of the Migrant Workers Convention.

The generally high number of ratifications can be seen as a sign of a high level of acceptance of the international human rights norms by the international community without saying anything about the satisfactory implementation of the treaties. One shortcoming, of course, is the refusal of the United States of America and some other influential states to accede to all treaties and their supplementary agreements. Nevertheless, it is permissible to take the existence of the human rights treaty as evidence of the absurdity of the cultural relativization of human rights that is occasionally put forward . The almost universal consensus of the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights of 1993, where the international community committed to promoting human rights as the primary task of the United Nations and all member states, is also important.

Interpretations and procedural character of international human right

The understanding of the state obligations arising from human rights enshrined in international law is still at the beginning of the process of legal interpretation. This applies above all to the agreements concluded through the United Nations. This condition is unsatisfactory. Adequate time should, however, be allowed for a global human rights tradition to develop. Different legal traditions must find a relationship to one another here; and interstate conflicts can be significant obstacles. The European states are a step further with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The human rights treaty bodies, which are entrusted with the review of UN treaty practice, play a key role in specifying the obligations of states. These are committees made up of independent experts who write legal comments on questions they have selected and make statements on the content of state obligations. Otherwise, the highest courts of the contracting states will be responsible for interpretation. The highest German courts have so far hardly invoked the human rights treaties of the United Nations. One reason for this is simply ignorance about the relevance of the treaties; In the past they have played no role in judge training.

Implementation and enforceability

The deficits in the implementation of human rights treaties are sometimes considerable, depending on the individual countries. Despite ratification under international law, the agreements have so far not generally proven to be a guarantee that human rights violations will not occur. However, their usefulness is considerable, as they provide a framework for dealing with serious state-individual disputes and conflicts that undermine the dignity of the individual. They provide universal norms with specific legal terms that can be used by governments and courts in individual cases and that can be understood and understood by all.

The human rights codified in the agreements are only conditionally enforceable in the contracting states and cannot be enforced from the outset. Because the addressees of the agreements are the contracting states and not the victims of human rights violations. The treaties do not convey subjective rights with direct effect, but are limited to obliging the contracting states to grant certain rights. To this end, they are required to adapt their legislation accordingly and to base their administrative actions on the contracts. Under the requirement of an interpretation of national law that is friendly to international law, they can use the courts to influence the legal order.

The UN agreements are not yet enforceable at the international level. Until then, international law still has a long way to go. Because a world court of human rights is not yet in sight. However, some of the agreements provide for the possibility of individual complaints due to additional protocols . If all domestic legal remedies are unsuccessful, victims of human rights violations can turn to the treaty bodies to obtain a verdict. This can contain recommendations to the contracting state from which the complaint originates. Although the recommendations of the treaty bodies are not binding, they can have political effects on what happens in the state. The same applies to the statements made by the treaty bodies on the state reports . The states parties must submit the state reports every few years in order to document the state of implementation of the human rights treaty vis-à-vis the treaty bodies. Civil society can comment and provide additional information, so that the judgments of the treaty bodies can be critical.

Regional human rights treaties

The human rights regime of the Council of Europe is much more developed. The European Convention on Human Rights has both an individual complaint procedure and a supreme court, the heavily frequented European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Especially for Turkey and some Eastern European countries, he has a human rights role.

The American Convention on Human Rights also constitutes a court, the Inter-American Human Rights Court in San José ( Costa Rica ). However, this is invoked less frequently than the Strasbourg court and has so far not found any involvement from Canada or the USA. The protocol for the establishment of an African human rights tribunal, negotiated several years earlier, was not yet in force until 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. On the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. ( Memento of the original from January 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 73 kB) on: bundestag.de , October 16, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundestag.de
  2. International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance enters into force. ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: bundestag-nachrichten.de , December 22, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bundestag-nachrichten.de
  3. ^ The International Bill of Human Rights. (PDF) In: Fact Sheet No.2 (Rev.1). Published by UNHCHR , accessed April 3, 2019 .
  4. The International Charter of Human Rights. In: Human Rights. Published by: UN German Translation Service, accessed on April 3, 2019 .