The Challenges of South-South Cooperation and Triangular Cooperation for the United Nations: Towards True Solidarity and a Human Rights Based Democratization of Global Health?

Associative Solidarity, Relational Goods, and Autonomy for Refugees: What Does it Mean to Stand in Solidarity with Refugees?

Preface List of Contributors Introduction Progressive Nuances in International Human Rights Paradigm 1. The Historical Development of International Human Rights, Michelo Hansungule 1. Introduction 2. Some Historical Perspectives on Human Rights 3. Universal Rights 4. The European View 5. Human Rights as Moral Ideas in Diverse Societies, Religions, and Cultures 6. Africa 7. Middle East (Islamic World) 8. Asia 9. Post-War Developments 10. Conclusion 2. Civil and Political Rights, Joshua Castellino 1. Introduction 2. The Covenant 3. The Rights Package 4. Future Challenges 3. An Introduction to Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Overcoming the Constraints of Categorization through Implementation, Vinodh Jaichand 1. Introduction 2. Historical Development 3. Similarities and Differences in Content of ICCPR and ICESCR 4. The Norms and Enforcement 5. On Justiciability: An Example of the Protection of ESC Rights in a Region 6. On Justiciability: Domestic Enforcement 7. Conclusion 4. Women's Rights in International Law, Mmatsie Mooki, Rita Ozoemana, Michelo Hansungule 1. Introduction 2. Recognition of Women's Rights: United Nations Charter and the International Bill of Rights 3. Women's Rights in other United Nations Convention 4. Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women 5. United Nations Groundbreaking Conferences 6. Violence Against Women 7. Conclusion 5. Globalization and Human Rights, Heli Askola 1. Introduction 2. Globalization 3. Economic Globalization and Human Rights 4. Political, Social and Cultural Globalization and Human Rights 5. Conclusion 6. Role of the UN in the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Elvira Dominguez-Redondo 1. Introduction 2. From Codification to Efficiency: The Different Phases of the Human Rights Discourse within the United Nations 3. Normative Development of the UN System of Protection and Promotion of Human Rights 4. Charter-based and Treaty-based Monitoring Mechanisms: Public Special Procedure and the Work of the Committees 7. Attributes of Successful Human Rights on-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) - Sixty Years After the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, George E. Edwards 1. Introduction 2. NGOs & Human Rights NGOs 3. Ten Characteristics of Successful Human Rights NGOs 4. NGO Self-Regulation Via Codes of Conduct and Ethics 5. Conclusion 8. Do States have an Obligation under International Law to Provide Human Rights Education?, Paula Gerber 1. Introduction 2. Human Rights Education (HRE) in International Law 3. Obstacles to the Realization of HRE 4. Conclusion 9. Application of International Standards of Human Rights Law at Domestic Level, Joshua Castellino 1. Introduction 2. The Codification of International Human Rights Standards as Law 3. Domestic Implementation of Rights: The 'Engine Room' of Universal Instruments of Human Rights 4. Conclusion 10. Role of Regional Human Rights Instruments in the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, Azizur Rahman Chowdhury, V. Seshaiah Shasthri, Md. Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan 1. Introduction 2. European Human Rights Treaties and Their Implementation 3. The Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, 1969 4. The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, 1981 5. Concluding Remarks Index

Reviewed by: The Culturalization of Human Rights Law by Federico Lenzerini Julie Fraser, Ph.D. Candidate (bio) Federico Lenzerini, The Culturalization of Human Rights Law (Oxford University Press, 2014), ISBN 978-0-19-966428-3, 304pages. I. INTRODUCTION The apparent tension between human rights and cultural diversity is as old as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In an effort to ease this tension, Federico Lenzerini uses this book to promote the “culturalization” of human rights: a differentiated understanding of rights based on the specific needs of the people in each case. Lenzerini makes important contributions by setting out the foundations of human dignity and rights in societies around the world, and providing examples of cultural approaches to human rights law by international and regional bodies. The book is a thoroughly researched and well-argued contemporary analysis of the long-standing human rights debate on universalism and cultural relativism. The book proceeds in five chapters, first introducing the universalism debate before turning to sources of human rights and dignity in societies around the world. Lenzerini provides detailed examples of human rights in pre-colonial societies, analyzing, inter alia, the Code of Hammurabi, the Qur’an, Confucianism, the Constitution of the Iroquois Nations, and Aztec and Incan texts. He concludes that from ancient times, ideas of human rights existed well beyond the “West.”1 Chapter Two notes that despite the development of “universal” human rights law at the international level, different parts of the world have retained their specific views on rights through regional instruments.2 Chapter Three sets out the culturally based approaches to human rights evident in international and regional law and practice. The in-depth study, including the African, European, Inter-American, and UN systems, concludes that culture today is recognized as an element to be considered in human rights adjudication.3 The fourth and final chapters articulate the advantages of a culturally based approach to human rights, as well as a methodology for identifying universal standards. The crucial issue Lenzerini addresses is not whether human rights can be interpreted and implemented in a culturally sensible manner, but to what extent. II. CULTURALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS Like others, Lenzerini submits that almost all human rights include a cultural dimension4 resulting from the fact that “culture” includes features that characterize a society or social group, including the modes of life, the value systems, and the traditions and beliefs.5 As culture can [End Page 1110] play such a critical role in shaping the content of human rights for an individual or community, Lenzerini questions the traditional view that human rights are “wholly universal.”6 He subscribes to “moderate cultural relativism,” holding that cultural variations are acceptable to the extent that they do not impact upon the “basic core of fundamental rights which are universal.”7 Lenzerini advocates the “culturalization” of rights, an interpretive process by which the content of rights is made relevant for and tailored to communities around the world. This is necessary as people’s expectations differ, and human rights standards should be flexible to allow different expectations to be met in concrete ways.8 This process sits in contrast to the strict application of rigid international human rights norms regardless of the historical, social, and cultural context of the individual/community in question. Lenzerini’s culturalization can be compared to other culturally sensitive approaches to human rights advocated by scholars including Sally Engle Merry, Eva Brems, Abdullahi An-Na’im, Tom Zwart, and Alison Renteln.9 Yvonne Donders asserts that cultural sensitivity in human rights implementation is now generally accepted.10 In support of his approach, Lenzerini cites a number of benefits, including better community acceptance of human rights, improved effectiveness, and greater state compliance. He claims that culturalization promotes the “cultural acceptance, assimilation, and legitimization of human rights.”11 As a result, human rights are not perceived as “abstract dictates” from the outside, but are “brought down to earth” and seen as a key component of the social dynamics.12 As such, people support human rights as embedded and necessary, which may in turn increase state compliance.13 While this may be the case for nation-states, the process will arguably be more complicated...

Reviewed by: Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World by Benjamin Mason Meier & Lawrence O. Gostin Matheus de Carvalho Hernandez (bio) and Inga T. Winkler (bio) Benjamin Mason Meier & Lawrence O. Gostin, Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2018), ISBN 9780190672676, 614 Pages. Institutions matter. This is the key message of the volume on Human Rights in Global Health edited by Benjamin Meier and Lawrence Gostin. With a renewed and comprehensive vision of human rights after the end of the Cold War and wide-ranging calls for entering the era of implementation of human rights,1 the inextricable link between human rights and global health has become generally accepted. Global health issues demand complex solutions, solutions that depend on a range of actors. They depend on global health governance. The encounter between these two realms—human rights and global health—places international institutions in the center of dynamics, demonstrating their strategic role for the realization of the right to health. The volume's main goal is to evaluate the connections between public health, global governance, and human rights. It presents a vast array of international organizations based on a broad understanding of global health, ranging from the WHO, to organizations in the UN system, to organizations focused on economic governance, to the UN human rights system. While States remain the primary duty-bearers for the realization of human rights, international organizations have a significant influence and such a wide definition of global health governance is appropriate for the multilevel and multi-stakeholder nature of the issue. It acknowledges that a broad range of organizations (including those whose mandate is not originally linked to global health) indeed have an impact on global health.2 The result of this immense analytical effort is a volume with over 600 pages, five sections, and twenty-four chapters that bring together forty-six authors, including many key experts in the health and human rights field. The first section provides the theoretical, historical, and conceptual basis regarding the relevance of human rights for global health, especially the rights-based approach to health. Chapter Three defines global governance for health as "the structures and methods of governing public health through multi-level and multisectoral institutions, including the actors and norms that define global health in an increasingly globalized [End Page 1045] world,"3 and discusses the role of human rights in influencing these governance processes. The section concludes with a forward-looking chapter on the need to reform global health governance in order to realize human rights in the sustainable development era (and the SDGs also feature prominently in other chapters). The second section is devoted to the World Health Organization (WHO) as the main specialized agency for global health. The authors explore the political and internal constraints and resistance to rights-based approaches inside the WHO. The section also assesses the current Gender, Equity, and Human Rights mainstreaming processes and analyzes the strategic position of the WHO in the future of global health governance. The third section discusses the different approaches of the UN agencies, funds, and programs to mainstreaming human rights into global health. The chapters are dedicated to analyzing each organization (UNICEF, ILO, UNESCO, UNFPA, FAO, and UNAIDS) within their respective mandates and their efforts to promote a human rights-based approach to global health. The section demonstrates how these UN entities have been seeking (with different levels of success) to implement Kofi Annan's appeal to mainstream human rights in all their practices. The final forward-looking chapter of the section (Chapter Fourteen focuses on the role of organizational partnerships for health and human rights. As it is impossible to delink human rights mainstreaming from development cooperation, the welcome fourth section goes beyond institutions that consider global health as the core of their mandate and approaches global economic governance institutions and funding agencies. The chapters critically discuss the role of these institutions in integrating human rights into their recommendations on economic reform and poverty reduction. Following an introductory chapter on the integration of the human rights-based approach and the right to development into global governance to health, the...

The article is devoted to the study of the role and significance of guarantees of individual rights and freedoms in Ukraine. The author defines that they are important factors in the economic, political, legal, cultural and other spheres of society that create conditions for the real possibility of exercising the rights and freedoms of the individual. The concept of solidarity excludes the idea of class struggle, the revolutionary path of development of society. According to this concept, the focus is on the social nature of the state: socio-economic, cultural, environmental rights of citizens are ensured with the participation of the state, which pursues an active socio-economic policy aimed at redistribution of funds for the most vulnerable, employment, social insurance, development affordable education, health care, etc.
 Guarantees for the realization of human and civil rights, freedoms and responsibilities can be described as a system of conditions and means that together ensure the exercise of constitutional human and civil rights, freedoms and responsibilities. The effectiveness of this system depends on various factors, but the main among them is the presence of certain elements in the system of government. These include: a) the existence of the Basic Law, the effect of which cannot be terminated arbitrarily; b) the definition of state power derived from the power of the people and the Constitution; c) consolidation at the constitutional level of fundamental rights, freedoms and responsibilities of man and citizen and the means and conditions of their exercise; d) the existence of an independent judiciary; e) the opportunity to protect their rights with the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and in international human rights organizations.
 It is also proposed to solve certain issues of realization of human rights and freedoms in Ukraine through the implementation of the concept of solidarity - the principle of building a social system in which its members (citizens, families, ethnic groups, religious denominations, social groups, political parties, business corporations, etc.) have a real legal and socio-political subjectivity , on the basis of which their rights, opportunities and interests can be consolidated and solidified in order to achieve consensus goals (common good) in social frameworks of different scales (local, national, global).

Author’s Response

Regional human rights systems play a crucial role in strengthening IHRL. Initial concerns that regional systems could undermine the universality of human rights law have been surmounted in light of the important results achieved. In particular regional human rights systems provide a significant layer of protection, they can be more effective than UN bodies as they are closely connected to political regional developments and they have largely contributed, especially through their jurisprudence, to the enhancement of IHRL. In the field of reparations the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court have paved the way to all the major developments, also in cases affecting children. The African human rights system, and in particular the African Committee of Experts on the Rights of the Child, the African Commission and Court on Human Rights and People's Rights, will be also analysed as the African continent is the most affected by violations of children's rights in armed conflict. The European human rights system will not be included in this overview because it has not dealt wiThthe impact of armed conflict on children.

Historically, policies aimed at prohibiting and punishing the use of certain drugs have driven the international approach to drug control and dominate the approach of most countries, guided as they are by the three UN drug control conventions and the dominant policy directions emanating from the associated international bodies. Such an approach is usually defended with moralistic portrayals that demonise and dehumanise people who use drugs as representing a ‘social evil’ menacing the health and values of the public and state. Portrayed as less than human, people who use drugs are often excluded from the sphere of human rights concern. These policies, and the accompanying enforcement practices, entrench and exacerbate systemic discrimination against people who use drugs and result in widespread, varied and serious human rights violations. As a result, in high-income and low-income countries across all regions of the world, people who use illegal drugs are often among the most marginalised and stigmatised sectors of society. They are a group that is vulnerable to a wide array of human rights violations, including abusive law enforcement practices, mass incarceration, extrajudicial executions, denial of health services, and, in some countries, execution under legislation that fails to meet international human rights standards. At the level of the United Nations, resolving this situation through established mechanisms is complicated by the inherent contradictions faced by the UN on the question of drugs. On the one hand, the UN is tasked by the international community with promoting and expanding global human rights protections, a core purpose of the organisation since its inception. On the other, it is also the body responsible for promoting and expanding the international drug control regime, the very system that has led to the denial of human rights to people who use drugs. All too often, experience has shown that where these regimes come into conflict, drug prohibition and punishment has been allowed to trump human rights, or at least take human rights off the agenda. The UN system needs to ensure coherence in its policy and programmatic approaches, a coherence that reflects the primacy and centrality of human rights to the rest of its work. In three parts, this report: presents a critical analysis of the UN systems of drug control and human rights, and their relative relationship within overall UN governance, and outlines the basis for the primacy of human rights; highlights the multiple ways in which the enforcement of drug prohibition, the dominant approach of the UN drug control system, leads to a wide and varied range of human rights violations; and sets out recommendations aimed at ‘recalibrating the regime’ to prevent the ongoing subversion of human rights protection in the name of drug control.

Introduction This chapter is written from the perspective of a large international non-governmental organisation (NGO): it seeks to share some of the experiences which Amnesty International has had with the UN treaty bodies. Amnesty International operates in several different contexts within the UN system. The organisation works with the political bodies (the Security Council, General Assembly and Commission on Human Rights), as well as with the various agencies, expert bodies, and field operations. The first thing that strikes one when considering the use made of the treaty bodies by NGOs is the ‘splendid isolation’ of the treaty bodies from the rest of the UN system. The treaty bodies are considered by some to be the heart of the human rights system, and the treaty bodies see themselves as the hub around which others should circle. The reality is that the treaty bodies are becoming more and more peripheral to the UN system and need to reach out to establish new links. In preparing this chapter the author spoke to two former UN officials who had headed UN human rights field operations. Neither ex-director could remember having had any contact or use for the treaty bodies. They considered the treaty bodies irrelevant for the ‘real’ human rights work which was being performed in the country. This chapter will highlight the need for new links to the treaty bodies and will put forward a series of suggestions for a more integrated approach to human rights monitoring in the UN system.

What next for UNAIDS?

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...

This concluding chapter looks at human rights co-ordination within the UN system. For a long time, human rights in the United Nations tended to be treated as a special domain, one which might be of growing importance, but which did not necessarily need to be a consistent focus of the entire UN machinery. The importance of co-ordination and coherence for human rights promotion, however, has steadily become clearer, as the perception has grown that the human rights ‘issue area’ cannot be successfully dealt with in a vacuum or in isolation. The focus here, accordingly, is on the relationship of human rights to various relevant parts of the UN system—‘inter-regime’ co-ordination—rather than on co-ordination among human rights activities undertaken by the various members of the UN family of institutions—‘intra-regime’ co-ordination. It is the former aspect of co-ordination that has proved to be most problematic and had achieved the least progress until the recent period.

Health innovation and research has become an economic and profitable activity. Market practices have exposed inequalities, scarcities and inequities in access to treatments and have significantly reduced the decision-making power of governments in the field of public health. Documentary research on the human right (HR) to health (Art. 12) and its interrelationship with the right to benefit from scientific progress (Art. 15, b) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on access to medicines in three bodies of the UN system - the ICESCR Monitoring Committee (CESCR), the Human Rights Council (HRC) and World Health Organisation - over the last 10 years. The documents address three main topics. Market: marketing restrictions, price controls and using flexibility in pharmaceutical patents to reduce costs and produce generics. Innovation: patent protection without barriers to access to medicines for people in need. Health system interventions: giving priority to economic efficiency and sustainability by institutionalising health technology assessment, selecting essential medicines, developing clinical guidelines and integrating and linking regulatory agencies. These normative guidelines minimise the ethical, political and legal dimensions of the human right to enjoy scientific progress in access to medicines as a priority value that should guide public and private action, and emphasise technocratic and financial measures that seek to reconcile the liberal and social logic of the ICESCR. Key messages • In order to maximise the guarantee of human rights in access to medicines, economic and financial considerations should play only a residual role in human rights. • To give countries greater decision-making power at the global health, the scope of the right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications in health care needs to be expanded.

The Nuremberg tribunal was the expression and the beginning of states' recognition of their duty to prosecute genocide and other gross human rights violations. It was a first step towards fulfillin...

The UN World Water Development Report 2016, <i>Water and Jobs</i>: A Critical Review