International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

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International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Short title: UN Civil Pact; Switzerland: UN Pact II
Title (engl.): International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Abbreviation: ICCPR or IPbpR
Date: December 16, 1966
Come into effect: March 23, 1976
Reference: english , french
Reference (German): BGBl. 1973 II p. 1533, 1534
(D, trilingual),
BGBl. No. 591/1978 (A, trilingual),
SR 0.103.2 (CH)
Contract type: Multinational
Legal matter: Human rights
Signing: 74 (March 3, 2019)
Ratification : 172 (March 3, 2019)

Germany: Ratification November 8, 1973 (GDR) and December 17, 1973 (FRG)
Liechtenstein: Ratified December 10, 1998
Austria: Ratified September 10, 1978
Switzerland: Ratified June 18, 1992
Please note the note on the applicable contract version .

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( english International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights , ICCPR ) or in a summary ICCPR or ICCPR , in Switzerland and the Covenant called, is a treaty under international law .

history

The negotiation of the text of the treaty for the pact on civil and political rights took place in parallel with the negotiations for the UN social pact, which was concluded at the same time, between 1948 and 1966. The negotiations were determined by the political interests and constellations on which the East-West conflict and decolonization were based. One of the points of contention in the worsening Cold War was the question of the extent to which a transnational international agreement could influence state sovereignty. Furthermore, there was disagreement among the states as to whether political and civil rights (later UN civil pact) should be formulated in a treaty together with economic, social and cultural rights (later UN social pact). Above all, the USA and Great Britain feared that the international law treaty would have less effect due to an extension of the treaty text to include economic rights. Another point of contention was the question of the regional validity of the treaty: The USA demanded that in federal states the federal states should freely decide on the application of the human rights pact. Great Britain also demanded that colonial areas should be excluded from the scope of the human rights pact. Decolonized states, on the other hand, demanded that the peoples' right to self-determination be implemented as a human right in the pact. After 18 years of political struggle, the two treaties were finally adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 20, 1966 .

The UN civil pact came into force on March 23, 1976. In July 2019, 173 states were contracting parties through ratification , accession or succession , including the Federal Republic of Germany (1973) and Switzerland (1992). Six other states signed but not ratified the treaty (including Cuba and the People's Republic of China ).

Austria ratified the treaties with reservations in 1978, they are therefore dead law, since the implementing laws are missing. The associations “Society for more humanity and civil rights” and “Clean Hands” endeavor to implement the implementing laws.

The GDR signed the pact on March 23, 1973 and ratified it - with reservations and declarations - on November 8, 1973.

Content

The pact guarantees legally binding basic human rights , also known as first generation human rights: the right to life, the prohibition of slavery and forced labor , the right to personal freedom and security, freedom of thought, conscience and religion as well as the right to the participation in universal, equal and secret ballot . In addition, equality between men and women is guaranteed.

Regulations on the protection of minorities generally prohibit discrimination against ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and stipulate that they must not be deprived of their right to their own culture, to profess and practice their religion and to use their own language.

Article 20 prohibits hate and war propaganda.

Together with the UN Social Covenant and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , it forms the fundamental human rights treaties of the United Nations .

The optional protocol, which 114 states have ratified so far (as of July 2013), also provides for individual complaints from each person concerned. On December 15, 1989, a “Second Optional Protocol” on the abolition of the death penalty was added to the pact , which 85 states have ratified (as of July 2018).

monitoring

World map regarding the UN civil pact: ratified (dark green); signed but not ratified (light green); not signed and not ratified (gray) (as of Nov. 25, 2008)

The member states are obliged to submit periodic reports to the UN Human Rights Committee . These are considered the weakest means of enforcing the contract. The Human Rights Committee can also accept and negotiate individual complaints from individual citizens of states that have signed the Additional Protocol.

Significance in German law

According to Article 19, Paragraph 4 of the Basic Law , anyone who is violated in their rights by public authority has recourse to legal action. This applies not only to violations of fundamental rights , but to all rights protected in the German legal system. Thus, the guarantee of legal recourse in Article 19.4 of the Basic Law also covers cases in which the state violates directly effective international human rights norms which, according to Article 59.2 of the Basic Law or Article 25 of the Basic Law ( international law clause ), are part of domestic law. The German user of the law is bound to the transformed provisions of international law through Article 20, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law (“Jurisprudence is bound by law and justice”).

Reform efforts

In 2005 the United Nations was called upon to expand the treaty to create a legally binding instrument for data protection and privacy protection. On the occasion of the NSA affair , in the summer of 2013 the German government spoke out in favor of an amendment to the contract, as it did not meet the importance of digital data protection. The UN representatives of Germany and Brazil campaigned for support for a corresponding UN resolution in October 2013 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Ridder: The human rights pacts. In: Sources on the history of human rights. Working Group on Human Rights in the 20th Century, May 2015, accessed on January 11, 2017 .
  2. ^ United Nations Treaty Collection. Retrieved September 25, 2017 (English).
  3. ^ Report to the United Nations
  4. ↑ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
  5. ↑ Parliamentary question
  6. ^ For text see United Nations Treaty Series, vol. 999, p. 294. “The German Democratic Republic is of the opinion that Article 48 Paragraph 1 of the Convention contradicts the principle according to which all states which allow themselves to be guided in their policies by the goals and principles of the Charter of the United Nations , have the right to become a member of conventions that affect the interests of all states. "
  7. ↑ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of December 19, 1966 , Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany : “(1) All war propaganda is prohibited by law. (2) Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence is prohibited by law. "
  8. ↑ Optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ( Federal Law Gazette No. 105/1988 , in three languages)
  9. ↑ Montreux Declaration: The protection of personal data and privacy in a globalized world, a universal right respecting diversities ( PDF ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check Original and archive link according to instructions and then remove this note .; 106 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.libertysecurity.org
  10. ↑ Berlin calls for global data protection rules. Deutsche Welle, July 16, 2013, accessed on October 28, 2013 (English).
  11. ^ Matthias Rüb: Espionage affair: Merkel and Rousseff prepare UN resolution against America. faz.net, October 27, 2013, accessed October 28, 2013 .
  12. ^ Draft for the General Assembly in December 2014. Accessed on November 5, 2014 .

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