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International
Human Rights Law:
Prospects & Challenges
Week 1, Lecture 2:
A brief history of human rights

Lecture Overview
State sovereignty a foundational principle

of the international legal system.

Limited international recognition and

protection of individual and group rights

prior to the Second World War.
Catalysts for international recognition and
protection of human rights (HRs) after the
Second World War.
Revising the traditional view of sovereignty.

Sovereigntya foundational
principle of the international
legal system
Rights and privileges of sovereignty
Nonintervention by one State in another

States domestic affairs

Consequences of sovereignty for

protecting individual & group rights

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International protection of
individual & group rights prior
to the Second World War
Treaties guaranteeing freedom of religious worship

for Catholics & Protestants (17th century)

Abolition of slavery & slave trade (early 19th century)

Minimum international standards of treatment of

foreigners residing in other countries (19th century)

Treaties protecting ethnic minorities in Central &

Eastern Europe (early 20th century)

Individual and group rights

prior to the Second World War
What do these four historical

examples have in common?

Catalysts for protecting HRs

after the Second World War
During the Second World War, the Nazi

regime in Germany organized mass detention

and extermination of Jews, Gypsies,
Communists, gay men, and other groups.
Allied Powers were aware of some atrocities,

but failed to act.

Widespread public horror when the full scope

of atrocities were revealed at the wars end.

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Catalysts for protecting HRs

after the Second World War
Recognition that domestic laws & institutions

were insufficient to protect individuals &

groups from violence, discrimination & other
.
forms of mistreatment by governments.
Why?
Constitutions can be suspended or revised,
Democratic institutions can be disbanded,
Courts can be shut down or coopted.

Catalysts for protecting HRs

after the Second World War
Responses to the shortcomings of protecting

rights in domestic legal systems

develop a shared global understanding of
fundamental rights and freedoms,
create international laws and institutions to
protect those rights and freedoms, and
revise the traditional understanding of
State sovereignty.

Revising the traditional

understanding of sovereignty
Universalization of human rights
Internationalization of human rights

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Revising the traditional

understanding of sovereignty
The universalization of rights means
acceptance, at least in principle and

rhetoric, of the concept of individual human

rights by all societies and governments [as]
reflected in national constitutions and law.
LOUIS HENKIN, THE AGE OF RIGHTS (1990)

Revising the traditional

understanding of sovereignty
The internationalization of rights means
agreement, at least in political-legal

principle and in rhetoric, that individual

human rights are of international concern and
a proper subject for diplomacy, international
institutions, and international law.
LOUIS HENKIN, THE AGE OF RIGHTS (1990)

For additional information

U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human

Rights, What are Human Rights?

Judge Thomas Buergenthal, A Brief History of

International Human Rights Law (video)

Aryeh Neier,

The International Human Rights Movement: A History

(Princeton Univ. Press 2012)
Samuel Moyn,
The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Harvard
Univ. Press 2010)