Human rights, vulnerability, and climate migration in the anthropocene: Reconceptualizing responsibility

INTRODUCTION Where human rights violations occur due to extraterritorial action or inaction, regional or even global human rights supervisory bodies could become the main forums to which victims of human rights violations turn in order to obtain appropriate remedies. Hence, African regional mechanisms could offer a framework within which to hold the foreign perpetrator responsible for the transboundary violations of rights of residents of third states. In fact, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) – the supervisory body of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights of 1981 (African Charter), the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa of 2003 (African Women's Protocol), and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Older Persons in Africa of 2016 – has long received complaints involving the extraterritorial reach of states’ human rights obligations. There are discernible trends in the jurisprudence of the African regional system regarding the extraterritorial scope of African Charter guarantees, states’ human rights duties, and the right of individuals and groups to seek and enforce extraterritorial remedies. In a sense, quasi-judicial scrutiny of the extraterritorial reach of human rights and states’ duties has leapfrogged related scholarship. This chapter analyses the concept of extraterritoriality in the field of African human rights law in particular and human rights law in general. The chapter first provides an overview on human rights in Africa (their recognition and relevance). This is followed by a consideration of the extent to which extraterritorial state obligations have been recognised in African regional human rights law. This is discussed in the context of the burgeoning case law of the global and other regional human rights supervisory bodies (sections 5 and 6 below), which provide inspirational sources that the African regional system should draw upon. The recognition of extraterritorial state obligations in international human rights law (with specific focus on the United Nations (UN) system) and other regional human rights law (with specific focus, albeit briefly, on the European and Inter-American systems) provides the context within which the extraterritorial reach of African human rights treaties should be further understood.

Human rights queryfalse are typically presented in terms of entitlements, correlative duties, claims, “trumps,” and remedies. 1 These framings, which draw principally on law and philosophy, emphasi...

Central Asian States’ Compliance with International Refugee and Human Rights Law Both China and Central Asian states are parties to the major international human rights instruments that demand protection of the human rights of ethnic and religious minorities as well as protection of refugees from persecution based on their ethnicity and religious and political views. This chapter explores how Central Asian states have been balancing their international human rights obligations towards Chinese Uyghur asylum seekers and their regional obligations under the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to fight against terrorism, extremism and separatism. The author finds that Central Asian states have continuously treated Chinese asylum seekers as a political matter and have given preference to their regional commitments towards China over their international human rights obligations, which has resulted in the absence of any real protection for Chinese asylum seekers in the region. This chapter argues that while Central Asian states may see compliance with human rights obligations to be politically inconvenient, only due compliance with international refugee and human rights law in good faith will benefit these states in the long run. In particular, a strictly legal approach to Chinese asylum seekers will help Central Asian states assert their sovereign equality and independence within the SCO and balance out China’s growing influence on their domestic policy.

Rights Make Might examines why the three most salient minority groups in Japan all expanded their activism since the late 1970s against significant headwinds, and chronicles how global human rights ideas and institutions empowered all three groups to engage in enhanced political activities. It also documents the contributions of the three groups to the expansion of global human rights activities, demonstrating the feedback mechanism from local groups to global institutions. Examining the prehistory of the three groups, it first sets the scene for minority politics in Japan before the 1970s, which featured politically dormant Ainu, an indigenous people in northern Japan; active but unsuccessful Koreans, a stateless colonial legacy group; and active and established Burakumin, a former outcaste group that still faced social discrimination. Against this background, the infusion of global human rights ideas and the opening of international human rights arenas as new venues for contestation transformed minority activists’ movement actorhood, or subjective understanding about their position and entitled rights in Japan, as well as the views of the Japanese public and political establishment toward those groups, thus catalyzing substantial gains for all three groups. Having benefited from global human rights, all three groups also repaid their debt by contributing to the consolidation and expansion of global human rights principles and instruments. Rights Make Might offers a detailed historical and comparative analysis of the co-constitutive relationship between international human rights activities and local politics that contributes to our understanding of international norms, multilateral institutions, social movements, human rights, ethnoracial politics, and Japanese society.

Reviewed by: National Human Rights Action Planning by Azadeh Chalabi Aisling Swaine (bio) Azadeh Chalabi, National Human Rights Action Planning (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018), ISBN 9780192555595, 251 pages. As discussed so very well in this timely and original book by Azadeh Chalabi, the rapid development of human rights law and norms has been "spectacular" since the middle of the last century. The founding of the United Nations both brought about and was premised on a paradigm of human rights. This was a new framework deigned to advance a global governance that not only melded the fractures caused by the world wars, but advanced a cooperative multilateralism that worked toward a humanity rooted in the dignity and prosperity of all peoples. Human rights instrument followed human rights instrument in an effort to advance these ideas. Lackluster translation of these lofty ideals into practical realities, however, meant that the generalized set of rights founded by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and even those that founded civil, political and socioeconomic rights in the 1960s, were slowly followed by instruments dedicated to addressing gaps in specific areas of rights. Even these, such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while contributing to vast improvements in tackling discriminations specifically affecting women and children, continue to lack a robust implementation required to achieve the vision originally set out by the human rights ideals of the United Nations system.1 The dissonance between the ideals of the instruments and their implementation, and indeed between what different states [End Page 531] might consider to constitute full implementation on their part, is an ongoing concern. States—who are ultimately responsible for fulfilling the rights enshrined in these instruments—scholars, and the policy makers tasked with translating rights into real change, have advanced both practical ideas and the debate for implementation since the inception of the human rights field. Approaches taken to translate and implement global legal obligations into and through myriad domestic legal, political and sociocultural systems, have faced a range of challenges, many of which this book sets out to discuss very clearly. For example, the task facing the human rights committees overseeing the implementation of these instruments and the ways in which they tackle state responsibilities are discussed in the book, as are the challenges faced by states in fulfilling their obligations, whether political, economic or cultural. While the human rights system and its attempts to advance compliance with human rights laws and norms provide important context for the book, it is state engagement with action planning that is the specific subject of the book, and for very good reason. The idea of state-level action planning as a response to global commitments has proliferated across the UN system, now populates myriad fields and sub-fields of human rights, from climate change to women, peace, and security (WPS). The author argues that the idea of action planning for human rights compliance originated in the early instruments of the 1960s, which she identifies as specifically enshrined in a provision of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),2 as well as in the requirements of positive measures across the human rights instruments. She further evidences how over time through the constructive dialogues, various human rights committees have requested states to develop action plans in response to gaps in implementation of their human rights obligations. On the basis of these legal and normative advancements, the author even argues that there is a legal obligation for states to adopt action plans. Despite these developments within the human rights system and the proliferation of both the idea of action planning and action plans themselves across the human rights field, this book is the first to specifically examine the evolution of action plans, filling a curious and critical gap in human rights scholarship. In her examination of human rights action planning, Azadeh Chalabi takes as a premise that action plans are a tool critical to furthering implementation of human rights obligations, and that member states are required to adopt them as part of their ratification of global human rights laws. In doing...

The 2016 icsid award in Urbaser v. Argentina affirmed for the first time the possibility of a counterclaim in investment arbitration based on an international investor obligation under the human right to water. But to denounce a break-through and fundamental change in both international investment and human rights law would be premature. This article deconstructs the award’s reasoning and sheds light on its doctrinal fallacies, in particular the award’s unclear construction of the integration of a human rights obligation into investment arbitration and its misled argumentation on the existence of an international human rights obligation of private actors under the human right to water. Concluding that the award cannot be sustained under the current state of international law, the article then reflects on the potential of the award’s conception of human rights counterclaims for the future of international investment law and international human rights law.

The nature of the relationship between international humanitarian law and international human rights law remains a vexed one. In recent years, human rights lawyers and activists have sought to apply human rights norms to military conduct in international and internal conflicts, and during belligerent occupations. With varying degrees of success, complainants have brought their cases before international tribunals, and to national courts able to apply international human rights standards. This development has occurred largely because forums exist to hear human rights claims, whereas they do not for persons claiming individual redress for violations of international humanitarian law. However, human rights norms have also been seen as more restrictive: as placing greater constraints on States' freedom to conduct hostilities, preventively detain, and administer occupied territories. It is for this reason that some States have resisted attempts to extend the reach of international human rights law into areas traditionally seen as governed by international humanitarian law. This chapter argues that principles have now developed to govern the relationship between the two bodies of law. However, their application to different situations remains a work-in-progress and controversies remain. In particular, despite valient efforts, it remains unclear what what happens in situations where the two bodies of law cannot be read together? There are only few rules of norm-conflict resolution in international law, all of which have limited application in the context of the relationship between international humanitarian law and human rights law. Most inconsistencies between the rules of the two bodies of law are not true conflicts at all, as they do not require States to conduct themselves in different ways. It is simply that international humanitarian law is the more permissive system. In such situations, to argue that the two bodies of law are ‘complementary and mutually reinforcing’ is to do little more than issue a policy prescription. In reality, in such cases States have to make a choice as regards which rules they wish to comply (a choice which is likely to be a political one) and take the consequences. There are fundamental incompatibilities between international humanitarian law and human rights law, not only as regards discrete rules but in their theoretical bases. Attempts can be made to reconcile them, to avoid conflicts, but they can only be provisional and on a case-by-case basis. The legal tools available cannot always provide an answer. Absent legislation, conflicts will remain. And in a world of States with differing interests and values, the adoption of new rules governing armed conflict and belligerent occupation will be difficult, if not impossible. One difference between the two bodies of rules, in particular, remains fundamental. Despite developments over past decades which are said to indicate a ‘humanization of humanitarian law’, international humanitarian law, in contrast to human rights law, is not based on an individual rights paradigm. It is this difference, even excluding the differences in the substantive protections accorded individuals under the two bodies of law, which will ensure that individuals continue to bring complaints regarding their treatment in situations of armed conflict before human rights bodies. And even if human rights bodies take the view that States’ human rights obligations in situations of armed conflict are to be interpreted using the yardstick of international humanitarian law, their interpretations of humanitarian law are likely to differ from lawyers advising States’ defence ministries and armed forces, who are likely to continue to be unhappy with such trespasses into what they see as their chasse gardee.

The article examines approaches to the interaction of decisions of the Court of the European Union (CJEU) and international obligations in the field of human rights with the constitutional identity of states. Attention is focused on the concepts of “national identity” and “constitutional identity”, their relationship, and the introduction of the concept of “national identity” into the European legal order after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty (1993). Attention is drawn to the fact that the primary law of the EU does not contain the concept of “constitutional identity”, but this term is widely used in the decisions of the constitutional courts of several EU member states. In these decisions, the constitutional courts raised the issue of the protection of the constitution and constitutionality in the EU member state given the harmonization of legislation and/ or ultra vires decisions. The article notes that the concept of constitutional identity is broad, it covers the historical, political, cultural, and legal identity of the state, as well as the connection of national law with the international and autonomous legal order of the EU. The idea of constitutional identity is dynamic and constantly evolving due to the continuous development of the states themselves. The analysis of various approaches to this interaction based on the German Federal Constitutional Court, Hungarian Constitutional Court, and Italian Constitutional Court was carried out. It is noted that the interaction of CJEU rulings with constitutional identities is based on the principle of primacy of the EU law, and international human rights obligations are based on the conventional feature of the “obligation of uniform interpretation” and universal standards while ignoring the constitutional tradition of the states. It means that CJEU judgments have a higher legal force than national court judgments, while international human rights obligations should become precedents for subsequent national court judgments, not lowering the national standards of human rights protection.

Climate-induced migration is an escalating phenomenon influenced by environmental changes, including rising sea levels, extreme weather events, desertification, and droughts, which displace millions worldwide. This article examines the complex global legal implications and human rights challenges associated with climate-induced migration. Despite increasing recognition of the issue, there remains a lack of international legal frameworks specifically addressing the rights and protections of climate migrants. This deficiency leaves migrants vulnerable to human rights violations and, in many cases, without adequate legal status in host countries. The study explores how existing frameworks, such as the 1951 Refugee Convention, fall short in addressing the unique circumstances of climate migrants, who often do not meet the traditional criteria of refugees. Through case studies, the article assesses the impact of climate-induced migration on affected populations and the response of regional and international organizations. The findings underscore the need for a comprehensive legal response to ensure the protection, rights, and dignity of climate migrants, alongside proactive strategies for mitigation and adaptation. Finally, the article recommends developing new legal instruments or adapting current frameworks to accommodate this emerging category of migrants, balancing national sovereignty concerns with global human rights commitments.

Indonesia's Islamic marriage law, established in 1974 and partially revised in 2019, is increasingly viewed as outdated, particularly in its regulation of spousal relationships. While the 2019 amendment addressed the legal age of marriage, other substantive aspects, especially those governing the relationship between husband and wife remain misaligned with international human rights standards. This study aims to analyze the provisions governing marital relations in Indonesia’s Islamic marriage law through the lens of international human rights instruments. Adopting a qualitative, literature-based research design, the study utilizes legislative and conceptual approaches, with a specific focus on the principle of justice as articulated in global human rights frameworks. The findings indicate that, although Indonesia’s Islamic marriage law has incorporated several principles consistent with human rights norms, it still contains provisions that perpetuate gender-based disparities. These include the formal designation of the husband as the head of the household and the wife as a homemaker, as well as imbalances in rights and responsibilities that reflect patriarchal assumptions. Such legal constructs not only conflict with gender equality but also undermine Indonesia's commitments to international human rights obligations. The study concludes by recommending further legal reform to harmonize Islamic marriage law with contemporary understandings of gender justice and human rights.

Children’s rights law is often studied and perceived in isolation from the broader field of human rights law. This volume explores the inter-relationship between children’s rights law and more general human rights law in order to see whether elements from each could successfully inform the other. Children’s rights law has a number of distinctive characteristics, such as the emphasis on the ‘best interests of the child’, the use of general principles, and the inclusion of ‘third parties’ (e.g. parents and other care-takers) in treaty provisions. The first part of this book questions whether these features could be a source of inspiration for general human rights law. In part two, the reverse question is asked: could children’s rights law draw inspiration from developments in other branches of human rights law that focus on other specific categories of rights holders, such as women, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, or older persons? Finally, the interaction between children’s rights law and human rights law – and the potential for their isolation, inspiration or integration – may be coloured or determined by the thematic issue under consideration. Therefore the third part of the book studies the interplay between children’s rights law and human rights law in the context of specific topics: intra-family relations, LGBTQI marginalization, migration, media, the environment and transnational human rights obligations.

National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), as set forth in the 1993 Paris Principles, are expected to be independent bodies that promote and monitor state implementation of international human rights standards. In such a role, an individual NHRI bridges the gap between “international human rights obligations and actual enjoyment of human rights on the ground” and thereby operates as a nexus between a global human rights system and local conditions. A location at the nexus has the potential to offer opportunities to exercise powers as an intermediary on behalf of human rights in terms of enabling engagement between global and local levels. The analysis, however, draws upon the experiences of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC) to assert that there are limits for institutions at the nexus between global and local. Using a public controversy from 2016 that questioned the legitimacy of the MNHRC and threatened its existence as an NHRI, the analysis seeks to improve understanding of the risks facing NHRIs and add insight into the ways contextual politics challenge expectations for NHRIs to operate as human rights intermediaries.

The 2017 Annual Conference of the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) held at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Leuven (Belgium) from 27 to 28 April 2017 is the one of the leading events among the professional associations uniting international law scholars in human rights field. The conference focused on issues of monitoring compliance with international human rights obli-gations of States in the activities of universal and regional human rights bodies, particularly UN human rights mechanisms, human rights treaty bodies and regional and sub-regional human rights mechanisms within European, Inter-American and African human rights systems. Within these issues a particular at-tention was paid to the interaction between universal and regional human rights systems, specifically the role of regional mechanisms in the promotion and protection of human rights and enhancing univer-sal human rights standards enshrined in international human rights treaties. The paper provides a brief review of the selected reports presented at the conference, which raised a particular scientific interest of the author. The author describes the reports devoted to: 1) factors de-termining adoption and enforcement of international human rights obligations by States; 2) States’ im-plementation of international human rights norms through the lens of interplay between the internation-al, regional and national levels; 3) the interaction between the universal and European human rights sys-tems (European Court of Human Rights with human rights treaty bodies and special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council).

This chapter addresses two crucial issues extraterritoriality presents—particularly when socioeconomic rights are taken into account. In order to identify extraterritorial human rights obligations we need to know why states are the primary duty bearers of international human rights law and which state owes international legal human rights obligations to which individuals. That is, we need to allocate the burdens that go along with human rights obligations and we need to justify this allocation. To do this, this chapter considers the Hohfeldian structure of rights, analyses accounts of justifying human rights, and argues that an interpretivist account of international human rights law as a normative context is the best way forward.

Civil society organizations are key actors in the promotion and protection of human rights in Nigeria and have participated in all the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) circles of the Government of Nigeria. The UPR is a first of its kind innovation adopted in 2006 by the Human Rights Council to complement the works of treaty bodies and involves the review on a periodic basis, the human rights records of all Member States of the United Nations. As a peer review process comprising three distinct stages and involving three major sources of information, this article exclusively ex-rays the UPR civil society report on the implementation of Nigeria’s international human rights obligations. As one of the three sources of information relied upon by the Human Rights Council in the Universal Periodic Review of the human rights record of the Government of Nigeria, this article, while focusing on the civil society information submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/251 concludes that despite advances in the promotion and protection of human rights claimed in its national report to be made in the implementation of international human rights obligations, there are still, from civil society lens, plethora of issues and gaps in the implementation of Nigeria’s international human rights obligations.