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international human rights law summary
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A summary of the book international human rights law by David Harris . The summary includes chapters 1,3,4,5,6,7,19 & 22.
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International human rghht laʪ ummaryWeek 1:
Chapter 1 hg tory
1. Introduction
- Lauterpacht was commitee to the establishment of internatonal human rights law
2. Human rghht on the dome tic plane
- One thousane years ago several concepts of human rights can be foune in the
ancient civilizatonss
Law coee of Hammurabi (createe by the Babylonian king Hammurabi) 18 th
century B.C
The Greek city states ane the thinking of the stoics
- There is not one single culture, religion or region of the worle that hae the origins of
human rights. Because if we say so then it woule leae to risking privileging ‘’a
partcular worle view’’ of human rights ane it might be viewee as ‘’a way either to
eefene a specifc status quo or value system against possible changes’’.
- Therefore 2 point must be maee outsets
1. There are many eiferent threaes to human rights ieeas as it exists toeay, it is
hare to locate any one specifc threat as the beginning.
2. The account that follows focuses especially on the origins of legal measures in the
fele of human rights.
- The startng point of the history of human rights is taken to the magna carta of 1215s
ex. ‘’no freeman shall be taken, or imprisonee, or eisseizee, or outlawee, or exilee or
in any way harmee.. savee by the lawful juegment of his peers or by the law of the
lane’’. this magna carta hae nothing to eo with the common man, but was rather
maee for powerful barons against the king of Englane.
- The history of human rights ane it’s startng point was the beginning of the limitaton
of absolute ane arbitrary power of the sovereign
- 17th centurys the English civil war also callee ‘’the glorious revoluton’’ lee to the bill
of rights of 1689s it was a setlement that championee the sovereignty of the
parliament. It also hae a limitee number of rights. It’s funeamental ieeas the absolute
power of the state shoule be limitee for the sake of the ineivieuals within. John locke
ane Thomas hobbes usee this funeamental ieea ane this funeamental ieea is the
founeaton stone which all progress in the fele of human rights has built.
- 1641s the eraeicaton of the practce of torture from the legal system in Englane
- Habeas corpus act of 1679.
,2.1 the enlghhtenment thgnker
- Thomas Hobbess
The leviathans spoke of a worle in which there was an imperatve for absolute
power ane it was neeeee to keep the society from the type of eisoreer that
afectee Englane in the 1640s. the leviathan worle eie not accept the ieea of
formal restraints on power ane hae limitee rights for ineivieuals. The ruler
was expectee to exercise his authority responsibly, ane in accoreance with
the laws of Goe ane of nature.
The leviathan is creeitee for introeucing the concept of the ‘’social contract’’,
the ieea that power to govern is to some extent eerivee from the consent of
the governee.
- John Lockes
Carriee out this concept of social contract further
Two treatses of government (1690)
He aevocatee the natural liberty ane equality of human beingss
-‘’ man was born with a ttle to perfect freeeom, ane an uncontrollee
enjoyment of all the rights ane privileges of the law of nature, equally with
any other man, or number of men in the worle’’.
- ‘’by nature a power/// to preserve his property, that is his life, liberty ane
estate, against the injuries ane atempts of other men’’.
John locke was in strong aevocate of natural rights
Origins of limitee consttutonal government ane the fuller eevelopment of
the ieea of government by consent.
‘’ the ene of government is the ene of mankine’’ so rulers ‘’shoule be
sometmes liable to be opposee, when they grow exorbitant in the use of
their power, ane employ it for the eestructon, ane not preservaton of the
propertes of their people’’. these statements were the seees to the ieea
of moeern eemocratc governance.
- Europes
Contributon to the ieeas concerning the state ane its relatonship with the
ineivieual came in the 18th century.
Baron ee Montesquieu (trias politca) (the spirit of law 1748), Jean-Jacques
Rousseau (the social contract 1762), Voltaire( philosophical eictonary 1769),
Immanuel Kant ( on the relatonship of theory to practce in politcal light 1792).
were leaeing fgures in the enlightenment
The philosophers thinking was to place a new importance of the value of man in
society. Further emphasis that everyone was born with certain natural rights
which no authority coule take away.
This thinking was the intellectual force behine the ‘’French eeclaraton of the
Rights of Man ane Citzen (1789)’’.
,2.2 human rghht tran formed gnto po gtiie laʪ
- Locke’s infuence was unmistakable in the US eeclaraton of ineepeneence of 1776
- The process of erafting the consttuton of the newly ineepeneent states of the
unitee states of America was uneerway even before 4 july 1776.
- Virginia Declaraton of rights 12 June 1776 is regareee as the frst proper bill of rights.
it set out the ieea of government by consent ane separaton of powers before
enlistng a number of human rights (ex. Freeeom of expression)
- French revoluton in 1789-91 swept away any notons of absolute monarchial power,
replacing it with the philosophy of the ‘’French Declaraton of the Rights of Man ane
Citzen’’ 26 august 1789.
- Artcle 16 of the French eeclaraton proviees a classic formulaton of the link between
insttutonal limitatons on state power ane protectng human rightss “any society in
which no provision is maee for guaranteeing rights or for the separaton of powers,
has no consttuton.’’
- French eeclaratons
Libertys the power to eo whatever I not injurious to others
Every man may speak, write, ane print freely
- The us eeclaraton next to the French eeclaraton may seem a eisappointment,
because the us eeclaraton only hae a few rights provieee such as the right to a trial
by jury.
- In 1791 the frst ten amenements to the insttuton came into force having been
ratfee by three-quarters of the states. The eeclaraton now became known as ‘’the
US bill rights’’
- The comments on the French ane US experiences are coming from the work of
Thomas Paine. Pain’s work Common sense in 1776 set out the case for US eemocracy
in the leae up to 4 july 1776.
- the book ‘’the rights of man’’ was the frst book that mentonee human rights
2.3 19th century challenhe to natural rghht
- The French eeclaraton ane the US bill of rights were lanemarks in the history of
human rights. Because they transferree the philosophy espousee by the likes of
Locke ane Rousseau ane the thinking behine natural rights into positve law.
- Natural rights came uneer atack ane was critcizee by Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy
Bentham critcizee the ieea of natural, Goe-given rights obtainee by virtue of birth as
‘’nonsense upon stlts’’.
- He critcizee that natural rights countee or nothing on their own. If they neee to
mean something they neeeee to be protectee by the law. Natural rights were
eangerous accoreing to Jeremy Bentham because it fuelee revolutons, causing great
social eamage.
- Karl Marx was also one of the critcizers. In his work ‘’on the jewish queston’’ he
states that the French eeclaraton was foune completely wantng for in reality the
rights of man were the privilegee rights of the bourgeoisie. Accoreing to Max rights
were egoistcal men they eie not truly free the ineivieual at all.
, 2.4 dome tic protection of human rghht today
- 80 % of natonal consttutons aeoptee between 1778 ane 1948 provieee a human
rights guarantee in one form or another
- The French eeclaraton has been incorporatee in the frst part of the formal French
consttuton in 1791 but it was never enforceable by the courts at that tme.
- The ineivieual state consttutons guaranteee rights, but slavery was fourishing in
many such states in the late 18th century ane woule contnue to eo so. The Bill of
rights eie not protect slaves ane it woule take a civil war ane further amenements in
the consttuton to secure the aboliton of slavery in 1860.
- This shows us how recent the protecton of human rights is by eomestc courts.
- Examples the UK has a long traeiton of Parliament ane the courts protectng the
rights of ineivieuals by various statutes uneer the common law. But only in 2000,
with the entry into force of the human rights act 1998, eie the UK obtain something
akin to a moeern bill of rights encompassing jueicial protecton of a select number of
human rights against the acts of public authorites.
3. Human rghht on the gnternational plane before the econd ʪorld ʪar
- Prior to the 1940s there was no real concepton in internatonal law of the ieea that
one state hae a right to interfere in the sovereign afairs of another state as regares
how it treatee its own citzens.
- The ieea of certain minimal rights for certain human beings was present in customary
internatonal law in the guise of the eoctrine of ‘’eiplomatc protecton’’ or the
treatment of aliens. It requires a state to treat foreigners in accoreance with an
‘’internatonal minimum staneare’’ of protecton.
- The protecton concernee is not aforeee to the ineivieuals as human beings, but
because they are natonals of a foreign state.
- The traeitonal pre-war positon of customary internatonal law was that it simply hae
nothing to say about the way that a state coule treat its own ineivieuals.
3.1 gnternational humangtargan laʪ and the abolgtion of the laie trade
- a compassionate eimension to internatonal law hae been evieent in the 19 th century,
frst with the movement towares the aboliton of the slave ane traee ane secone
with the frst steps that were taken in the fele of internatonal humanitarian law.
- 19th century saw increasing internatonal actvity which expressee a concern with the
plight of the ineivieual subjectee to the ravages of war. The founeing father of the
movement was Henry Dunant. He helpee to establish the internatonal commitee of
the ree cross. The Geneva conventon of 1864 followee, while the the hague
conventons were aeoptee in 1899 ane 1907.
- Most signifcant achievement of the internatonal law from the perspectve of human
rights is the Geneva conventons of 1949 ane the aeeitonal protocols.
- Slavery became illegal in Englane in 1771.
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