Human Rights Protection at the International Level

When speaking about the protection of human rights at the international level, one is regularly confronted with two widely held prejudices: that the individual complaints are the most efficient international remedies against human rights violations, and that the individual petition system under the European Human Rights Convention is the most, if not the only, successful procedure world-wide.

I do not necessarily share this view held by many European scholars and legal practitioners. First of all, there are a number of international monitoring procedures which are in their respective regional or political context as important and efficient as the individual complaints procedures.

When considering to take action in respect of human rights violations, one should carefully balance the advantages and disadvantages of the available procedures before deciding which of the international actions shall be taken.

The United Nations system is based on two pillars: the system established by the Commission on Human Rights based on the United Nations Charter and the system of protection based on human rights treaties. Primarily we will consider the treaty-based system. After the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, numerous declarations and treaties were adopted within the framework of the United Nations. Six treaties are generally considered to constitute the core of the United Nations standards. These are: the two International Covenants adopted in 1966 which entered into force in 1976 : the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination adopted in 1965, entered into force in 1969; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (adopted in 1979, entered into force in 1981); the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted in 1984, entered into force in 1990) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted in 1989, entered into force in 1990). The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was supplemented by two Optional Protocols : the first one adopted in 1966 and ratified in 1976 regulating the individual complaints procedure; the second Optional Protocol (1988-1991), aimed at the abolition of the death penalty.

The supervision over the States Parties' compliance with their obligations is exercised by independent monitoring bodies consisting of independent experts in the field of human rights. Four means of supervision have been created, of which one is laid down in all six treaties: the reporting procedure. Each of these treaties requires that the States parties submit reports on the implementation of the obligations set forth in the treaty. Other procedures are the individual complaints procedure, laid down in the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in Article 14 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and in Article 22 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Today many States Parties (87 out of 132) have ratified the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, while for some unclear reasons only a few States (20 out of 146) have accepted the individual complaints procedure under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In respect of the Convention against Torture, which has a total of only 96 States, only 36 of them have recognized the individual complaints procedure.

The third means of supervision is the inter-state communications procedure, which is optional in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture, and mandatory in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. However, this procedure has never been used within the framework of the United Nations. The fourth procedure laid down only in Article 20 of the Convention against Torture is the so-called inquiry procedure. If the Committee Against Torture receives reliable information containing well-founded allegations that torture is being systematically practiced in a State Party, the Committee may start an inquiry procedure, which may include, if agreed by the State concerned, a visit of a team of experts to the

relevant country.

No individual complaint procedures have been established under the other three treaties. Proposals from experts and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are

circulating trying to persuade governments to establish complaint procedures under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Political Rights, and a complaints procedure as well as an inquiry procedure under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. A working group of the Commission of Human Rights drafted an Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, establishing the authority of the Committee to pay unannounced visits to States Parties in order to supervise the implementation.

The system of individual communications is becoming more widely used each year. Although there are still a number of States parties from which never a complaint reached the Human Rights Committee, generally speaking, the Committee examined communications from all over the world. The State Party from which most communications have been submitted is Jamaica, most of which regarding the death penalty and fair trial, followed by the Netherlands and Canada. Communications which have been decided upon from Eastern Europe are so far few in numbers. Ukraine ratified the Optional Protocol in 1991 and made a declaration under Article 14 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

GRAMMAR FOCUS V

CONDITIONALS (Part 2)