Human Rights Obligations Of States Research Articles

Prospects and Challenges of Embedding the Human Right to Food Obligations into the Legal Framework for International Agricultural Trade Regulation

Although many academic commentators have long argued that the World Trade Organization (WTO)-driven liberal rules of international agricultural trade regulation have a negative effect on the enjoyment of the human right to food, especially in developing countries, there is still a dearth of scholarship offering proposals to ameliorate the situation. This article fills this gap by presenting a discussion of the possible avenues for accommodating the food security-related human rights obligations of states in the extant legal framework for international agricultural trade regulation. It argues that such a development, among other measures, is a plausible response to the problem of food insecurity endemic in developing countries and which manifests in international agricultural trade regulation. The article contends that for the WTO to effectively address the human right to food concerns of developing countries, the free trade regulations, as practised in international agricultural trade, must be complemented with the human right to food as a supreme norm sine qua non lege. It is concluded that this eminently desirable outcome can be achieved through the assimilation of the human right to food into the ‘public morals clause’ of Article XX of the GATT, reading the human right to food into the Agreement on Agriculture, adopting some WTO Ministerial Conference proposals, re-configuring some WTO dispute settlement practices, and lastly, by adopting the proposal of the UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to food.

Protecting the right to housing in the era of financialisation: four principles for urban renewal

ABSTRACT The human rights obligations of states stemming from the right to housing may include dealing with urban problems and improving the infrastructures of slum neighbourhoods. Where such difficulties cannot be easily resolved by a building-by-building approach, urban renewal may be seen almost as a panacea. However, reminiscent of Swiss knives, urban renewal policies may be implemented to achieve many different socio-economic purposes unrelated to urban challenges which may violate the right to housing in the era of financialisation. Based on this dilemma, this article illuminates the challenges that may be posed by urban renewal policies to the right to housing considering the standards set by human rights monitoring bodies through a comparative interpretative method and proposes four urban renewal principles within the scope of human rights law. The article ends with recommendations on the ways to activate human rights protection in the context of financialised urban renewal policies.

Institucionalni akteri kao međunarodni zakonodavci u oblasti biznisa i ljudskih prava - rukovodeća načela Ujedinjenih nacija o biznisu i ljudskim pravima i šire

Business and human rights is an interdisciplinary field, which advocates that both state and businesses are duty-holders of human rights obligations. The area of business and human rights aims to regulate and prevent negative impact of business operations at all levels of global supply chains. The approach of international law in this regard has so far been piecemeal. States have been traditionally a principal participant in the international community. Nonetheless, this article aims to test arguments submitted by Jovanović in his 2019 book "The Nature of International Law" that institutional non-state actors are capable of creating international legal rules. Equipped with this knowledge, this article argues that the UN Human Rights Council has through adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights restated human rights obligations of states and indirectly of corporations in international law in order to protect the dignity of rights-holders in local and global environments

Global Pandemics and International Law: An Evaluation of State Responsibility and States’ Human Rights Obligations arising from Covid-19

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, its damaging impacts and the corresponding measures that states have enacted implicate two important questions: (a) whether or to what extent a state bears responsibility under international law for its complicity in the outbreak of a pandemic; and (b) whether any human rights obligations or liabilities arise for states relative to the measures they enact to combat a pandemic. This paper addresses these two questions. The discussions on state responsibility are situated within the context of the Articles on State Responsibility, the Law of the World Health Organization and other rules of general international law. And drawing from the ICCPR and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the second part of the discussions focus on the human rights obligations of states arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.

From Zero to Hero? An analysis of the human rights protections within the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM)

AbstractThis article examines the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) from three perspectives: First, while the GCM is not legally binding, the human rights obligations of states which underpin the GCM are. The application of international human rights law to everyone, including migrants, has led to frictions in the inter‐governmental negotiation process, with some states declining to sign the GCM. States cannot relieve themselves of the human rights obligations to which they are already, voluntarily, bound by refusing to sign the GCM. Second, the GCM asserts the human rights of migrants, and by implication condemns state practices contrary thereto, but it also yields to political sensitivities. Thus, we encounter a Compact that defends existing human rights standards, but concurrently submits to political will and tolerates conditions of vulnerability. Third, the GCM’s implementation depends upon, as yet undefined, partnerships with non‐State actors and monitoring against human rights standards.

Bringing Human Rights to Bear on Climate Change

This article provides a framework for considering how human rights norms have been, and may be, brought to bear on climate change. After describing how human rights norms have been applied to environmental issues generally, the article addresses the challenge of climate change, whose global nature complicates the application of environmental human rights norms. The third section summarizes the emerging human rights obligations of states with respect to climate change.

Guiding Principles on the Human Rights Obligations of States to Provide Public Education and to Regulate Private Involvement in Education (The Abidjan Principles)

Guiding Principles on the Human Rights Obligations of States to Provide Public Education and to Regulate Private Involvement in Education (The Abidjan Principles)

Systemic Constraints and the Human Rights Obligations of States and State Owned Enterprises

The state occupies a curious place in the contemporary global order constructed through markets and multilateral frameworks of regulatory governance. The state retains its core function as an apex form of regulation within its territories (even as the forms that this regulation takes shifts from statutes, to administrative rules, to data driven accountability based governance). At the same time, the state has become an important participant within the markets it itself regulates. Through its state owned enterprises (SOEs) and other instruments, the state engages in economic activities within its territories as regulator and producer; outside its territories those instruments of state economic power operate within complex and evolving law, norms and rules functioning like other commercial ventures in global markets. SOEs also share the state's dual character—as market participant and as the projection of state power in markets. This dual character poses challenges and opportunities for the development of a rules based approach to the responsibilities of SOEs to respect, and the duty of their state owners to protect, human rights. Section 2 considers fundamental issues of the nature of state obligations and the definition of SOEs. Section 3 then examines the central question of this essay—given the structures and trends in the development of frameworks for business and human rights, where and how do SOEs fit into these structures? The section first examines the way that emerging international soft law regulatory structures envision the role of SOEs within these human rights based regulatory standards. It then considers future challenges. The section ends with a set of brief recommendations.

International Human rights law in an armed conflict: Legal perspectives on obligations of States and Extraterritoriality

Human rights are available to everyone on the basis of humanity. Universality, non-discrimination, equality and inalienability are core principles governing International Human rights Law (IHRL). The law governing armed conflict or war is known as International humanitarian Law (IHL). In the case of armed conflict, IHRL poses certain obligations on states along with humanitarian obligations. In this context, this article identifies the international human rights obligations of States in armed conflict. It argues that States must respect, promote, protect and fulfill human rights obligations of individuals, in the case of armed conflict, with increasing and serious concern, by analyzing the applicable legal framework under IHRL. It also addresses the extraterritorial application of IHRL and its limitations and derogations in armed conflict. Further, it discusses contemporary challenges for States in jurisdictional applicability and implementation of IHRL. To that extent, the argument developed throughout this article is that States have obligations under IHRL, irrespective of humanitarian obligations, not only in peace situations but also in the case of war or armed conflict.

Title to Territory and Jurisdiction in International Human Rights Law: Three Models for a Fraught Relationship

AbstractIt is by now uncontroversial that states may owe human rights obligations to individuals outside their territory. The debate about extraterritoriality has, so far, focused on the concept and interpretation of jurisdiction. The role of territory in general, and title in particular, in the conceptual landscape has received less attention in comparison. This article aims to fill this gap by showing that (a) title to territory continues to shape interpretations of jurisdiction, and (b) that this should be avoided. To this end, the article first defines jurisdiction in international human rights law and title to territory. Jurisdiction is best understood as a threshold criterion that triggers human rights obligations of states towards particular individuals. Title to territory, on the other hand, is a set of claims to territory designed to uphold minimal stability. The article then introduces three models – the approximation model, the differentiation model, and the separation model – of the relationship between title to territory and jurisdiction in international human rights law and evaluates them in light of their fit with the relational nature of human rights. The result is that the approximation and differentiation models – that is, those that maintain title's influence on the interpretation of jurisdiction in various degrees – fail the success criterion, while the separation model satisfies it.

Extraterritorial State Obligations Beyond the Concept of Jurisdiction

This Article discusses the extraterritorial human rights obligations of states and proposes a new approach for conceptualizing them. While extraterritorial state obligations within the concept of state jurisdiction are indisputably recognized, a more comprehensive perspective beyond jurisdiction is generally lacking. This Article aims to fill that gap. First, it discusses the traditional notions of extraterritorial state obligations and demonstrates their weaknesses. Second, a new concept of extraterritorial state obligations borrowing elements from systems theory is then suggested. The Article argues that comprehensive and general extraterritorial state obligations mainly build upon the normative idea of human rights. Human rights have universal validity and prescribe obligations that are independent of the jurisdiction of a state. What matters is that states can violate human rights beyond their jurisdiction and can influence violations of human rights committed by other actors. Finally, this Article outlines the scope and content of extraterritorial human rights obligations of states.

Economic growth, full employment and decent work: the means and ends in SDG 8

ABSTRACTThis article examines SDG 8 ‘Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all’. It critically examines the goal from two perspectives, the business approach advocated by the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) and the human right to full employment and decent work advocated by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and human rights NGOs. While full employment and decent work are indeed prominent in SDG 8, the 2030 Agenda embraces market-centred institutional arrangements that may present obstacles to achieving the goal. Specifically, grafting the human rights to full employment and decent work onto a business-oriented economic growth agenda in SDG 8 calls into question whether the 2030 Agenda enshrines full employment and decent work as human rights obligations of states or merely as benefits of economic growth. The article concludes that the ambiguity in SDG 8 presents both opportunities for human rights monitoring and accountability but also enhanced legitimacy for the business approach.

On the Division of Moral Labour for Human Rights Between States and Corporations: A Reply to Hsieh

AbstractIn a series of previous articles I have defended the claim that there are robust, theoretical justifications for concluding that corporations have human rights obligations and that those obligations are distinct from the larger set of human rights obligations that are properly attributed to states. Hsieh claims that corporations do not have human rights obligations. In this reply it is argued that even if one takes what Hsieh refers to as an ‘institutional approach’ to understanding the human rights obligations of states, corporations are nonetheless properly understood to have human rights obligations regarding those with whom they interact, such as workers, customers and community members.

ОБЗОР ЕЖЕГОДНОЙ КОНФЕРЕНЦИИ АССОЦИАЦИИ ИНСТИТУТОВ ПО ПРАВАМ ЧЕЛОВЕКА (27-28 АПРЕЛЯ 2017 Г., ЛЕВЕН, БЕЛЬГИЯ)

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).

Understanding human rights obligations of states engaged in public activity overseas: the case of transnational education

Legal consideration of extraterritorial obligations contained in the European Convention on Human Rights have largely developed in respect of military occupation or the custodial control of individuals. For a number of reasons situations involving transnational cooperation have received little judicial scrutiny. This article examines human rights concerns associated with the rapidly expanding field of transnational education, an activity frequently reliant on inter-state cooperation. By re-examining the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, the legal obligations of countries engaged in public activity overseas are explored. The analysis is structured around a case study on the oversight of a European education facility affected by Bahrain's controversial response to pro-reform protests.

Somali Piracy and the Human Rights of Seafarers

Somali piracy has attracted the world's attention over the last decade and whilst Somali piracy abates, the debate on its various aspects remains lively. This paper aims to shed light on one particular aspect of Somali piracy that remains unexplored – the violations of the human rights of seafarers, and especially those taken hostage. Despite the suffering of seafarers at the hands of pirates, their protection seems to fall beyond the human rights framework due to the non-State status of pirates. The lack of a human rights-oriented approach is reflected by significant counter-piracy responses, including the United Nations Security Council Resolutions, criminal responses and the conduct of naval operations that are reviewed here. Therefore, it is suggested that the traditional negative obligations of States and the evolution of the positive human rights obligations of States can offer a legal avenue for the better protection of the human rights of seafarers.

Where there’s smoke there’s – litigation

Purpose – This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach – This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings – The case study illustrates the complex paradigm that interlinks economic and human rights obligations of states on one side of the spectrum and property rights and social responsibilities of tobacco companies on the other. Practical implications – The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Originality/value – The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

The Political Economy of the Non-Enforcement by States of International Human Rights Pronouncements

A large number of regional and global agreements for the protection of human rights exists in the world today that regularly provide for supervisory bodies and various procedures to monitor the extent to which states abide by their obligations and to settle disputes regarding their interpretation and application. Some of these bodies can issue legally binding decisions while others can only make formally non-binding observations and recommendations. Together these pronouncements spawn an ample universe of pronouncements on the human rights obligations of states. In this contribution I argue that the fact that many of these pronouncements are legally non-binding does not mean that they cannot be made subject to legally permissible enforcement, either collectively or individually. At the same time, assuming rational decision-makers, such enforcement is highly unlikely theoretically and indeed rarely observed empirically. In addition to the lack of reciprocal benefits arising from mutual compliance with human rights norms it is in particular the absence, or only weak presence, of positive international and/or domestic audience effects that could act as inducements to engage in enforcement. In their absence, or when they are negative, the cost-benefit calculations of rational enforcers will counsel against engaging in enforcement of human rights decisions.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights: Unpaid Care Work and Women's Human Rights

In this report unpaid care work is positioned as a major human rights issue. Focusing on women caregivers, particularly those living in poverty, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights argues that heavy and unequal care responsibilities are a major barrier to gender equality and to women’s equal enjoyment of human rights, and, in many cases, condemn women to poverty. Therefore, the failure of States to adequately provide, fund, support and regulate care contradicts their human rights obligations, by creating and exacerbating inequalities and threatening women’s rights enjoyment. The report analyses the relationship between unpaid care and poverty, inequality and women’s human rights; clarifies the human rights obligations of States with regard to unpaid care; and finally provides recommendations to States on how to recognize, value, reduce and redistribute unpaid care work. Ultimately, it argues that State policies should position care as a social and collective responsibility, in particular through improving women’s access to public services, care services and infrastructure.

The Judicial Task of Administering Justice in Trade and Investment Law and Adjudication

International customary law requires interpreting treaties and settling related disputes ‘in conformity with principles of justice’ and the human rights obligations of states. Yet, in contrast to UN law, European economic law and related adjudication by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and European courts, international trade and investment agreements and related adjudication tend to avoid references to ‘principles of justice’ and human rights. This contribution argues for a more coherent ‘judicial methodology’ in multilevel economic adjudication in order to promote ‘judicial comity’ and transnational rule of law for the benefit of citizens. As the incorporation of human rights into positive international law entails the recognition of individuals as legal subjects, judicial regard to human rights and other ‘principles of justice’ is indispensable for determining the ‘object and purpose’ of modern international economic law (IEL) (i). By acknowledging the ‘dual nature’ of modern legal systems (ii) and the common core of ‘principles of justice’ underlying multilevel guarantees of equal freedoms and sovereign rights to protect public interests, economic adjudication could become more legitimate and more coherent (iii). The ‘methodological individualism’ underlying human rights law (HRL) and constitutional democracies justifies a presumption of conceptualizing private and public economic regulation as integral parts of IEL aimed at protecting reasonable self-interests and equal rights of citizens (iv). The ‘consistent interpretation principle’ recognized in national and international legal systems confirms the need for ‘de-fragmenting IEL’ based on ‘normative individualism’ (v). Economic adjudication derives its constitutional legitimacy from protecting ‘constitutional justice’ as a constitutive principle not only of HRL but also of modern trade and investment adjudication (vi) It requires respect for legitimate ‘constitutional pluralism’ (vii) and transnational cooperation among courts so as to protect rule of law not only in terms of rights of governments but also for the benefit of private economic actors (viii). Judicial rule-clarification (ix) and judicial ‘system building’ are necessary parts of judicial protection of transnational rule of law so as to improve the ‘incomplete’, fragmented and often power-driven IEL system for the benefit of citizens as the ultimate sources of values and democratic owners of governance institutions (x).