What is the document that was created by the UN that is designed to protect human rights

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?

Every human beingness is entitled to protection of, and respect for, their fundamental rights and freedoms. Human rights are those activities, weather condition, and privileges that all homo beings deserve to enjoy, by virtue of their humanity. They include ceremonious, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Human rights are inherent, inalienable, interdependent, and indivisible. This means we take these rights no matter what, the enjoyment of ane right affects the enjoyment of others, and every human being right must be respected.

Based on their international commitments, governments are required to put in place the laws and policies necessary for protection of human rights and to regulate private and public practices that touch individuals' enjoyment of those rights. Therefore, we think of national governments ("States") as the guarantors, or violators, of human being rights.

Human rights treaties protect individuals from government action (or inaction) that would threaten or harm their key rights. Similar national constitutions, which are covenants betwixt governments and their citizens, international human rights treaties are covenants between States and the international community, whereby States concur to guarantee certain rights to anybody within their territory or under their control. When States ratify human rights treaties, they concur to both refrain from violating specific rights and to guarantee enjoyment of those rights past individuals and groups within their jurisdictions.

Regional and international man rights bodies monitor States' compliance with their man rights commitments. These courts and oversight mechanisms also provide opportunities for redress and accountability that may be non-existent or ineffective at the national level.

By and large, States decide whether or not to ratify homo rights treaties or to accept oversight by a monitoring trunk or courtroom. The level of participation in the international human rights framework varies amongst States. IJRC'southward quick reference chart identifies the mechanism(s) responsible for interpreting and applying each of the chief UN and regional human rights treaties, their competencies, and how many States are subject to their jurisdiction.

The driving idea behind international man rights law is that – considering it is States who are in a position to violate individuals' freedoms – respect for those freedoms may exist difficult to come past without international consensus and oversight. That is, a State which does not guarantee basic freedoms to its citizens is unlikely to punish or right its own behavior, specially in the absence of international consensus equally to the substance of those freedoms and a bounden commitment to the international community to respect them.

States' homo rights duties have come to include positive and negative obligations. This means that, in express circumstances, States may accept a duty to take proactive steps to protect individuals' rights (rather than just refraining from direct violating those rights), including from non-Country action. In addition, demand for protections beyond the traditional civil and political sphere has increased the number and variety of interests which are recognized as rights, particularly in the area of economic, social and cultural concerns. Equally such, we refer to States' duties to: respect,protect, and fulfill the enjoyment of human rights.

While international human being rights courts and monitoring bodies oversee States' implementation of international human rights treaties, a variety of other sources are as well relevant to the determination of individuals' rights and States' obligations. These include the judicial and quasi-judicial decisions of international and domestic courts on international homo rights constabulary or its domestic equivalents; the decisions of domestic and international courts on the related (but distinct) subject field of international criminal law; and analysis and commentary by scholars and others. Of class, a necessary component of human rights protection is the factual research identifying the conditions which may plant violations, which is conducted by intergovernmental organizations, also as by ceremonious society.

International man rights police is dynamic and its boundaries are daily being pushed in new directions. IJRC'due south News Room can assistance readers keep upwardly with developments in the police, its interpretation, and the individuals and communities who are affected.

THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS FRAMEWORK

In the postal service-World War Two catamenia, international consensus crystallized around the need to identify the individual rights and liberties which all governments should respect, and to constitute mechanisms for both promoting States' adherence to their human rights obligations and for addressing serious breaches. Thus, in the decade following the war, national governments cooperated in the establishment of the Un (United nations),[1] the System of American States (OAS),[two] and the Council of Europe (COE),[3] each including among its purposes the advancement of human being rights.

These intergovernmental organizations and then prepared non-binding declarations or binding treaties which spelled out the specific liberties understood to be man rights, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,[4] American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man,[5] and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Central Freedoms.[6] By the end of the 1950s, these three systems (United Nations, Inter-American and European) had each established mechanisms for the promotion and protection of man rights, which included the (sometime) United nations Committee on Human Rights, the Inter-American Committee on Homo Rights, the (one-time) European Committee of Human Rights, and the European Court of Man Rights.

In subsequent decades, each oversaw the drafting of human rights agreements on specific topics[7] and created additional oversight mechanisms, which now include the United nations treaty bodies and Universal Periodic Review, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the European Committee of Social Rights.

More recently, other intergovernmental organizations have also established, or begun to found, regional human rights treaties and monitoring mechanisms. In Africa, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the African Court on Man and Peoples' Rights monitor State compliance with the African Lease on Human and Peoples' Rights.[8] The decline of the Soviet Union spurred the formation of the Organization for Security and Co-performance in Europe (OSCE) which recognized dialogue on human rights, political and military machine relations, and economical development as being equally important to sustained peace and stability across Europe and the (onetime) Soviet States.[9] In Southeast Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has recently created the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights,[10] and the League of Arab States in 2009 created the Arab Human Rights Committee.[11]

In improver, the UN, Inter-American, and African systems appoint individual experts to monitor human rights conditions in a range of priority areas, such as arbitrary detention and bigotry. These experts are often called rapporteurs, and they carry out their work past receiving information from civil society, visiting countries, and reporting on human rights conditions and the ways in which they violate or comply with international norms. The Quango of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights fulfills a similar role, although his mandate is not consequence-specific.[12] The UN High Commissioner for Man Rights supports and coordinates the UN's human rights activities, in improver to independently addressing issues of concern through country visits, dialogue with stakeholders, and public statements, much as rapporteurs do.[13]

Human RIGHTS BODIES' FUNCTIONS

One can think of the dissimilar mechanisms for the protection of homo rights equallyoverlapping umbrellas of distinct sizes, positioned around the earth. The different umbrellas are made up of the courts and monitoring bodies of the following universal and regional human rights systems:

• United Nations
  • Un Man Rights Quango
  • man rights treaty bodies
  • contained experts known as "special procedures"
  • Universal Periodic Review
• Africa
  • African Court on Human being and Peoples' Rights
  • African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
• the Americas
  • Inter-American Court of Human Rights
  • Inter-American Commission on Homo Rights
• Europe
  • European Courtroom of Human Rights
  • European Committee of Social Rights
  • Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights
• the Middle Eastward & N Africa
  • Arab Human Rights Committee
• Southeast Asia
  • Association of southeast asian nations Intergovernmental Commission on Homo Rights

These man rights bodies each acceptdifferent functions and jurisdiction, as shown in the belowdiagram and explanatory nautical chart of human being rights mechanisms' competencies. In full general, these mechanisms' responsibilities may include: deciding complaints confronting States, engaging in independent monitoring through state visits and reporting, and reviewing States' reports on their own compliance with human rights standards.

In addition, other intergovernmental or political bodies appoint in standard-setting, inter-State dialogue, monitoring, or promotion of human rights; such bodies include the UN Human Rights Council, ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, and the Commission on the Condition of Women.

Click on the image below to open up a PDF version of the diagram with hyperlinks to each torso.

Other International Courts & Monitoring Bodies

In addition, a variety of other international bodies outside of what is traditionally referred to as the "international human rights framework" also play a role in addressing human rights violations.

For instance, States may bring complaints against other States earlier the International Court of Justice, which from time to time decides cases involving individuals' human rights from the standpoint of one State'southward allegation that another violated the terms of an international agreement (such as by not affording its nationals access to consular representatives when they were detained in the second Land). The International Labour Organization (ILO) also oversees States' compliance with international labor standards, including by receiving inter-Land complaints apropos alleged violations of ILO conventions.

Farther, individuals (as opposed to States) may be criminally prosecuted for violations of international humanitarian law or international criminal law or ofjus cogens norms of international police force, or may be sued civilly under domestic constabulary. The International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, International Criminal Tribunal for the erstwhile Yugoslavia, and a number of internationalized criminal tribunals undertake such prosecutions.

A number of regional courts created through economic integration or development agreements have jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes related to man rights. These courts and tribunals of regional economical communities operate in subregions of Africa, the Americas, and Europe.

Finally, national, or "domestic," bodies also play an important role in implementing and enforcing international man rights standards, including through national homo rights institutions (NHRIs), domestic ceremonious and criminal legal proceedings, the practise of universal jurisdiction, and truth and reconciliation commissions.

Cantankerous-FERTILIZATION & COMPETING JURISDICTION

These overlapping umbrellas sometimes hateful that a item State will participate in, and report to, several supranational human rights bodies. For example, in the Western Hemisphere, all 35 independent countries are members of the Organization of American States and, as such, have signed the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Human being, under which complaints tin be brought confronting them before the Inter-American Commission on Homo Rights. In improver, each of these countries may or may not have ratified one or more of the cadre UN human rights treaties overseen past a treaty body – such equally the Commission Confronting Torture – that accepts individual complaints. Additionally, each Land may have agreed to bring inter-State disputes arising nether a specific treaty, such every bit the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to the International Court of Justice. Further, whatever of these States may too be a political party to the Rome Statute, meaning it is obligated to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in the prosecution of individuals suspected of committing genocide, crimes confronting humanity, war crimes or (in the future) aggression.

Although each of the various human rights bodies operates independently from the others, under a specific mandate and within the scope of its item treaties, the provisions of the regional and universal man rights treaties are often highly similar. Equally such, each tribunal ofttimes looks to the jurisprudence of the others when deciding novel or frail questions. Tribunals also wait to other bodies' interpretations when another treaty exists (typically a universal treaty) that is more specific or germane to the topic at hand, such every bit when tribunals look to the International Labour Organization conventions in interpreting the telescopic of labor rights.

However, this does not mean that the various tribunals have reached consequent conclusions on similar matters. Neither does it mean that the jurisprudence of each body is as developed equally the rest. Some tribunals take decades' more feel than others; some, such as the European Courtroom of Human being Rights, are and then well-known in their regions that they are inundated with claims, while others receive only a handful per year.

Further, the fact that diverse systems exist does not hateful that an individual complainant will exist able to obtain redress before any or all of them. Indeed, most judicial and quasi-judicial human rights bodies will only examine an individual complaint if it has not been previously adamant by another international torso. Finally, each torso'southward jurisdiction is discipline to distinct geographical, temporal and substantive limitations.

Appropriately, the layers of protection vary from Country to State, depending on the existence of a regional man rights system and each State's ratification of regional and universal instruments. Utilise of i system over some other volition depend not only on State membership, simply as well on which torso has produced more favorable caselaw, the reparations and other outcomes available at each, and practical considerations such as case processing time and backlogs.

If you have a question about the international human being rights framework, would like research help, or seek communication regarding a specific complaint, pleasecontact us.

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[ane] Lease of the United nations, Jun. 26, 1945, 1 U.Due north.T.Southward. XVI [hereinafter Un Lease].

[2]See Lease of the Organization of American States, April 30, 1948, 119 U.N.T.Due south. three, entered into strength Dec. 13, 1951; amended by the protocols of Buenos Aires, Cartagena, Washington and Managua [hereinafter OAS Charter].

[three] Statute of the Council of Europe, May 5, 1949, 87 U.Northward.T.South. 103, E.T.Southward. 1.

[4] Universal Announcement of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217A (III), U.N. Doc. A/810 at 71 (1948).

[5] American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Human, May 2, 1948, O.A.S. Res. XXX, reprinted in Bones Documents Pertaining to Human Rights in the Inter-American Organization, OAS/Ser.Fifty/V/I.4 Rev. 9 (2003); 43 AJIL Supp. 133 (1949).

[half-dozen] Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Nov. four, 1950, ETS v; 213 UNTS 221,entered into force Sept. three, 1953 [hereinafter European Convention on Homo Rights].

[seven]See, due east.g. ,International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Dec. xvi, 1966, 999 U.Northward.T.S. 171; S. Exec. Md. E, 95-2 (1978); Due south. Treaty Doctor. 95-20, half dozen I.L.K. 368 (1967); International Convention on the Emptying of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, December. 21, 1965, S. Exec. Doctor. C, 95-2 (1978); S. Treaty Medico. 95-18; 660 U.Due north.T.S. 195, 212; American Convention on Human Rights, Nov. 21, 1969, O.A.S. T.Due south. No. 36; 1144 U.Due north.T.S. 143; S. Treaty Doc. No. 95-21, nine I.L.Thousand. 99(1969); Inter-American Convention to Forestall and Punish Torture, O.A.S. Treaty Series No. 67,entered into forceFebruary. 28, 1987, reprinted in Basic Documents Pertaining to Human Rights in the Inter-American System, OEA/Ser.L.V/II.82 dr.. 6 rev.1 at 83, 25 I.L.M. 519 (1992); European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Handling or Punishment, Oct. 10, 1994, E.T.Southward. 126,entered into force Feb. i, 1989.

[viii] African Lease on Man and Peoples' Rights, June 27, 1981, 1520 U.N.T.S. 217, 245; 21 I.50.K. 58, 59 (1982).

[9] Charter of Paris for a New Europe, Paris, 21 Nov 1990, 2^nd Peak of Heads of State or Government, Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE); and Budapest Meridian Declaration: Towards a Genuine Partnership for a New Era, Budapest, 21 Dec 1994, 4^th Summit of Heads of State or Government, Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE). For details on origins of the OSCE,see http://www.osce.org/who.

[eleven]See Mervat Rishmawi,The Arab Lease on Human Rights and the League of Arab States: An Update, Human being Rights L. Rev.10:1 (2010), 169-178.

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Source: https://ijrcenter.org/ihr-reading-room/overview-of-the-human-rights-framework/