Some remarks about special features of human rights treaties

Abstract

Undoubtedly, human rights treaties have some special characteristics; but it seems important first of all to identify the phenomenon of the ‘human rights treaty’ for the purposes of the present article. An overwhelming number of treaties exist on the protection of rights of individuals, ranging from bilateral treaties to conventions with well over a hundred parties. Not all of these treaties can be said to be on the protection of ‘human rights’, as in international legal parlance not all the rights of private persons which are protected by treaty are called ‘human’ rights. But it is impossible to draw sharp lines as grey zones as well as a certain degree of overlapping appear to exist. Thus, for instance, property rights protected by treaty will generally not be considered as ‘human rights’, but Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, to name just one example, concerns ‘the peaceful enjoyment of [one's] possessions.’ By the same token, rights that are also currently identified as ‘human rights’ appear to be of a widely differing character. The same is true for the treaties in which they are enshrined as well as for the mechanisms of supervision of their application that are provided for in these treaties.