Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(LG523)
Preamble:
We the Peoples of the United Nations determined to save
succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice
in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to
reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and
women and of nations large and small, and to establish
conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations
arising from treaties and other sources of international law can
be maintained, and to promote social progress and better
standards of life in larger freedom…’
The Charter and Human Rights
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192 Member States
Each MS has one vote
Reflects the priorities of Governments
Non-binding resolutions – can form customary law
Art. 13 (1) The General Assembly shall initiate studies
and make recommendations for the purpose of…
b. Promoting international cooperation in the
economic, social, cultural, educations, and health
fields, and assisting in the realisation of human rights
and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as
to race, sex, language, or religion…
Could this amount to intervention in certain cases?
GA and “intervention”?
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol
=A/65/251 - agenda of the 65th session
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Genocide in Rwanda:
The UN did not make an enquiry into the attack.
For several weeks, the international community did not
intervene
In January 1994, Rwanda obtained a representative in
the Security Council. For the duration of the genocide,
the Rwandan representative, from the government
which was leading the genocide, attended the debates of
the security council.
The Guardian on April 12, 1994 stated that when viewing
a woman "being hauled along the road by a young man
with a machete":
"none of the troops moved. 'It's not our mandate,' said one,
leaning against his jeep as he watched the condemned
woman, the driving rain splashing at his blue United
Nations badge. The 3,000 foreign troops now in Rwanda
are no more than spectators to the savagery which aid
workers say has seen the massacre of 15,000 people"
SC and R2P
Intention
to commit to capacity-building and assistance to help states fulfil
their own responsibility to protect their own populations;
to use, as the ‘international community’, the appropriate diplomatic
and humanitarian means to help protect populations from atrocities;
to take collective action through the Security Council in accordance
with the UN Charter.
As Schabas points out, even if the endorsement of responsibility to
protect does nothing to confirm the legitimacy of the use of force
without an authorization from the Security Council: ‘Nevertheless,
the pledge, in the Outcome Document, is an important reminder to
the Security Council of its responsibility to intervene in appropriate
cases, where minorities are at great risk and human dignity is in
jeopardy’.
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OHCHR
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Resolution 48/141:
No activity for the High Commissioner is specifically prohibited.
Mostly dependent on the Commissioner’s own vision and the policies developed by the
OHCHR staff and the UN secretariat as a whole.
Implementation on the ground through field presences - By the end of 2007 the High
Commissioner had more people working in the field than at the Headquarters in Geneva (484 in
the field versus 442 in Geneva).
Amount to small representation offices to full-scale investigative and monitoring operations
The country offices are selected according to ‘seriousness of the human rights situation, the
potential for OHCHR to positively influence the situation, OHCHR’s ability to operate under
a broad mandate, and the openness of the government and civil society to work with
OHCHR to close implementation gaps’.
• knowledge gap focused on working with governments on how to translate their human rights
obligations into effective laws, policies, and programmes;
• a capacity gap to be filled by OHCHR helping governments to identify their needs and building
capacities to address human rights problems through its technical cooperation programme;
• a commitment gap which occurs when a government is either determined to act in breach of its
international human rights obligations, or when a government acknowledges being in breach but fails
adopt the necessary measures;
• a security gap which calls for protection short of the use of force for individuals whose personal security
is threatened. Such protection could be offered, by example, through the deployment of human rights
officers.
Responsibility for treaty bodies and HR Council
Subsidiary Organs of ECOSOC
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Sits throughout the year in short blocks (rather than one 6-week block)
Special sessions can be called at the initiative of one member with the
support of one-third of the membership. In its first two years of
existence the Council held seven special sessions.
General Assembly may (by a two-thirds majority) suspend membership
in the Council of a state that commits gross and systematic violations of
human rights.
Members are elected for three-year terms and are not eligible for
immediate re-election after serving two consecutive terms.
The Council now has a new procedure called ‘universal periodic review’
initiated in 2008, whereby the Council reviews every UN Member
State’s compliance with its human rights obligations and commitments.
The theory is that this procedure will avoid the Commission’s previous
selectivity by examining every state in the world with respect to the full
range of its human rights obligations.
Universal Periodic Review
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