The United Nations is the largest intergovernmental organization with 193 member states. The UN human rights system develops, monitors, and protects human rights around the world.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was a foundational document that set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected for the first time. The UDHR has significantly influenced the development of international human rights law.
The Human Rights Council is a body within the UN system with the mission of promoting and protecting human rights around the world. Its predecessor was the UN Commission on Human Rights.
The Universal Periodic Review was established when the Human Rights Council was created and is a mechanism that assesses the human rights situations in UN Member States. The Human Rights Council works with the UN Special Procedures, which consist of special rapporteurs and independent experts that monitor and report on thematic or country-specific human rights situations.
There are nine core international human rights instruments, some of which are supplemented by optional protocols. These treaties are "universal," meaning that countries from around the world are parties rather than limited to specific regions.
Links to the optional protocols to ICESCR, ICCPR, CEDAW, CRC, CAT, and CRPD are available here.
The websites for the treaty bodies provides access to general comments and recommendations, state party reports and concluding observations, cases, and other materials.
Commentaries provide article-by-article analysis of treaties and include citations to relevant jurisprudence, preparatory works, and other documents. The following commentaries are all available electronically through Oxford Scholarly Authorities on International Law. The complete list of titles included in this collection is available here.
You can find additional commentaries by searching on NUsearch, our library catalog, for keywords such as [name of treaty] + commentary (example: Convention on the Rights of the Child commentary).
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by
This treatise is a detailed article-by-article examination of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Each article of the CRPD contains a methodical analysis of the preparatory works, followed by an exhaustive examination of the contents of each articlebased on case law and concluding observations from the CRPD Committee, judgments from national and international courts and tribunals, pertinent UN and other reports, the key literature on the article under review.The volume features commentary from a broad range of scholars across a variety of disciplines in order to provide a comprehensive study of the legal, psychological, education, sociological, and other aspects of the CPRD. This encyclopaedic commentary on the CRPD effectively covers all the issuesarising from international disability law and practice, and will be an ideal resource for all working in the field.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is the centrepiece of international efforts to address racial discrimination, defined in broad terms to include discrimination based on skin colour, descent, ethnic, and national origin. Victims of discrimination withinthe scope of the Convention include minorities, indigenous peoples, non-citizens, and caste or descent groups. Virtually all national societies are diverse in terms of ethnicity or 'race' and none is free from discrimination, making it one of the great issues of our time.Against the background of international human rights standards and mechanisms to counter racial and ethnic discrimination, this book provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of the provisions of the Convention on an article-by article basis. The book addresses the place of the Conventionwithin the broader framework of United Nation's action against discrimination. The different chapters analyse and discuss broad topics of race, ethnicity, and international law, the genesis and drafting of the Convention, the aims and objectives of the Convention in light of its preamble, andprinciples of non-discrimination and equality. In particular, the book includes a critical appraisal of the contribution of the Convention to the eradication of racial discrimination. It also reflects on whether there is scope for modification of the substance or procedures of the Convention inlight of challenges arising from enhanced transnational population movements, the intersection between discrimination on the ground of race and discrimination against religious communities, and the intersection of racial and gender-based discrimination.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by
Now in its third edition, this book is the authoritative text on one of the world's most important human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Covenant is of universal relevance. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and in force from 1976, itcommits the signatories and parties to respect the civil and political freedoms and rights of individuals. Monitored by the UN Human Rights Committee, the Covenant ratified by the majority of UN member states.The book meticulously extracts and analyzes the jurisprudence over nearly forty years of the UN Human Rights Committee, on each of the various ICCPR rights, including the right to life, the right to freedom from torture, the right of freedom of religion, the right of freedom of expression, and theright to privacy, as well as admissibility criteria under the First Optional Protocol. Key miscellaneous issues, such as reservations, derogations, and denunciations, are also thoroughly assessed.Comprehensively indexed and cross-referenced, this book offers elegant and straight-forward access to the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee and other UN human rights treaty bodies. Presented in a clear and illuminating manner, it will be of use to the judiciary, human rights practitioners,human rights activists, government institutions, academics, and students alike.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by
This book brings together all essential documents, materials, and case law relating to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and its Optional Protocol, one of the most important human rights instruments in international law. This book presents extractsfrom primary material alongside commentary and analysis, placing the documents in their wider context and situating economic, social, and cultural rights within the broader human rights framework.There is increasing interest internationally, regionally, and in domestic legal systems in the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights. The Optional Protocol of 2008 allowed for individual communications to be made to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for the firsttime. At the regional level, socio-economic rights are well embedded in human rights systems in Europe and Africa. At the national level, constitutions and courts have increasingly regarded socio-economic rights as justiciable, narrowing the traditional divide with civil and political rights.This book contextualises these developments within the role and impact of the ICESCR, and assesses the nature of those rights which are outside the Convention, such as the right to water, the rights of indigenous peoples, the right to development, and rights to peace and security. Providing detailedanalysis of the ICESCR structured around its articles, drawing on national as well as international case law and materials, and containing all of the key primary materials in its extensive appendices, this book is ideal for the judiciary, human rights practitioners, human rights activists,government institutions, academics, and students alike.
The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women by
This volume is the first comprehensive commentary on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol. The Convention is a key international human rights instrument and the only one exclusively addressed to women. It has been described asthe United Nations' 'landmark treaty in the struggle for women's rights'.The Commentary describes the application of the Convention through the work of its monitoring body, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. It comprises detailed analyses of the Preamble and each article of the Convention and of the Optional Protocol. It also includes aseparate chapter on the cross-cutting substantive issue of violence against women. The sources relied on are the treaty language and the general recommendations, concluding observations and case law under the Optional Protocol, through which the Committee has interpreted and applied the Convention.Each chapter is self-contained but the Commentary is conceived of as an integral whole. The book also includes an Introduction which provides an overview of the Convention and its embedding in the international law of human rights.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most extensive and widely ratified international human rights treaty. This Commentary offers a comprehensive analysis of each of the substantive provisions in the Convention and its Optional Protocols on Children and ArmedConflict and the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Pornography.It offers a detailed insight into the drafting history of these instruments, the scope and nature of the rights accorded to children and the obligations imposed on states to secure the implementation of these rights. In doing so, it draws on the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child,international, regional and domestic courts, academic and interdisciplinary scholarly analyses.It is of relevance to anyone working on matters affecting children including government officials, policy makers, judicial officers, lawyers, educators, social workers, health professionals, academics, aid and humanitarian workers, and members of civil society.
The United Nations Convention Against Torture and Its Optional Protocol by
The prohibition of torture - the right to physical and mental integrity - is guaranteed in the strongest terms under international law. It is protected as an absolute right, non-derogable even in times of war or public emergency under many human rights treaties and is also generally acceptedas a part of customary international law and even ius cogens. The main instrument to combat torture within the framework of the United Nations is the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).This Commentary explores the problematic definition of torture in the Convention, the substantive obligations of States parties, the principle of "non-refoulement", provisions for international monitoring, and also the concept of preventative visits to all places of detention as contained in theOptional Protocol to the CAT. It also covers issues including the distinction between torture and cruel inhuman or degrading treatment and the principle of non-admissibility of evidence extracted under torture. Full article by article commentary on the Convention also provides historical context andthorough analysis of case-law and practice from international and regional courts and monitoring bodies. Relevant case-law from domestic courts are also discussed.Despite the broad ratification and the universal recognition of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment we witness a "global crisis" affecting the majority of countries worldwide. In recent years the protection of human rights is experiencing a particularly serious crisis - alsoaffecting the phenomenon of torture - in which official narratives and public belief often trivialise and even endorse such practices in the name of security and the fight against terrorism, ignoring the suffering and damages it causes. On the other hand, the positive experiences in some Statesillustrate that torture can be eradicated if the provisions of CAT and OPCAT are taken seriously and are being fully implemented.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Travaux Préparatoires, Volume I by
This book collects the drafting records of the one of the world’s two foremost human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966. It makes a contribution to understanding the origins and meaning of economic and social rights, which were drafted over almost two decades between 1947 and 1966. There is increasing global interest in the stronger protection of economic, social, and cultural rights, which are vital to the survival, dignity, and prosperity of everyone. Since 2013, individuals have been able to complain to the United Nations about violations of their rights, and action can also often be taken through regional and national human rights procedures. In this context, many of the current debates surrounding economic and social rights can be best understood in the light of their drafting history. The book judiciously selects, and chronologically presents, the most important drafting documents or extracts thereof between 1947 and 1966. The book contains an annotated table of documents, allowing researchers to track the progress of the key rights and issues in the drafting. It also includes an analytical introductory chapter, which summarises and analyses the main procedural and substantive developments during the drafting. The chapter charts the many influences on the recognition of economic and social rights at a key moment in history: the aftermath of the Second World War, which demonstrated the need to eliminate the economic and social causes of threats to global peace and security.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Travaux Preparatoires, Volume II by Some of the treaty bodies (CCPR, CAT, CEDAW, CERD, CRPD, CED, CESCR, and CRC) have procedures where individuals can lodge complaints of violations of the provisions of human rights treaties. The following resources provide access to jurisprudence from these treaty bodies.