Modern challenges to international security and protection of Human Rights (international and Ukrainian context)

Abstract

At the moment, two mechanisms for protecting human rights can be distinguished in Ukraine: an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights at the international level and an appeal to the Commissioner for Human Rights at the national level. Therewith, the activity of the ombudsman constitutes the state’s performance of its obligations at the international level to ensure the national mechanism for the protection of human rights. In Ukraine, the Ombudsman acts according to the model of the classic parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights. In addition, along with the parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, which has a constitutional status, there are government commissioners (“quasi-ombudsmen”) in Ukraine, whose activities do not have a special status and can be terminated at the will of the government at any time. Considering the above, the purpose of this study lies in a comprehensive analysis of modern challenges to international security and the impact of these factors on the observance of human rights in Ukraine (using the methods of both international law and classical legal methodology), as well as studying the role of the ombudsman in this process. The analysis allowed to conclude that the causes of human rights violations lie not only in the country’s problems, but are also the consequences of global processes. A huge challenge to the rights and freedoms in Ukraine is the intensifying poverty of the population, which in itself is a violation of human rights and allows to exercise all other rights. Furthermore, the hostilities in the Donbas region led to gross, massive, and systematic violations of human rights: residents of the front-line territories were faced with two challenges at once – the danger that arises due to the impossibility of ensuring security in the immediate vicinity of the war zone and the increasing risks of poverty