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A Practical Guide to Using International Human Rights and Criminal Law Procedures
This book is a practical, experience-based guide for advocates seeking remedies for human rights violations through the use of international institutions. Since 1948, when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, mechanisms for addressing human rights violations have multiplied to include UN Charter based bodies, treaty-based organizations including the international criminal court, and regional institutions. Each mechanism has its own admissibility requirements: accreditation, timeliness of claims, and exhaustion of remedies. For practitioners, the maze of rules and institutions can be difficult to navigate. This book offers step-by-step approaches for maximizing the institutions’ intended effect–promotion of human rights at all levels.
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Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
With this book, the authors provide a practical, experience-based guide for advocates seeking remedies for human rights violations through the use of international institutions. They offer step-by-step approaches for maximizing the institutions’ intended effect–promotion of human rights at all levels.
Since 1948, when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, mechanisms for addressing human rights violations have multiplied to include UN Charter based bodies, treaty-based organizations including the international criminal court, and regional institutions. Each mechanism has its own admissibility requirements: accreditation, timeliness of claims and exhaustion of remedies. For practitioners, the maze of rules and institutions can be difficult to navigate. The authors are able to offer guidance on how to work within international criminal and human rights mechanisms in a way that is useful to non-government actors and applies to English-speaking practitioners almost anywhere on the globe.
These pages will serve as an indispensable manual for human rights practitioners, defenders and lawyers, members of non-governmental organizations engaged in advocacy and the students, scholars and faculty of law schools.
Since 1948, when the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, mechanisms for addressing human rights violations have multiplied to include UN Charter based bodies, treaty-based organizations including the international criminal court, and regional institutions. Each mechanism has its own admissibility requirements: accreditation, timeliness of claims and exhaustion of remedies. For practitioners, the maze of rules and institutions can be difficult to navigate. The authors are able to offer guidance on how to work within international criminal and human rights mechanisms in a way that is useful to non-government actors and applies to English-speaking practitioners almost anywhere on the globe.
These pages will serve as an indispensable manual for human rights practitioners, defenders and lawyers, members of non-governmental organizations engaged in advocacy and the students, scholars and faculty of law schools.
Critical Acclaim
‘A tireless and fearless human rights defender, personally acquainted with every aspect of the available UN and regional systems, let alone the American institutions, Professor Connie de la Vega gives here one more proof of her lifelong dedication to the cause. This wide-ranging guide to the international and regional organs and mechanisms, now so numerous as to form a maze difficult to penetrate, goes far beyond a description of their components. It teaches NGOs and other civil society actors how to make proper use of the different instances, bodies and procedures, with advice on how to choose and put to use those that may best serve one’s endeavour. Clear knowledge of options available is, therefore, the first need to be fulfilled in order to avoid pitfalls and obstacles. This guide is certainly a most welcome contribution to all of those who still believe that universal human rights are now the only hope for social progress in a world where dominant politics seems determined to move backwards.’
– José Lindgren-Alves, Member of the Advisory Committee to the UN Human Rights Council and former member of CERD, Brazil
‘International human rights and international criminal law procedures for upholding the rights of victims represent a great breakthrough in theory, but they are of limited utility unless they are accessible to, and can be used effectively by, the victims and civil society advocates. This book is an invaluable guide to the complexities of these procedures and how they can be used to bring real change.’
– Philip Alston, New York University, School of Law, US and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
‘This is a wonderfully practical and straightforward guide for victims and those representing them on how to make international human rights bodies actually work. It explains in clear, accessible language how to get your issue or case before the UN, regional human rights bodies and the International Criminal Court, and what you can expect when you do so. The book fills the gap between theory and implementation nicely, and should be the go-to handbook for those doing human rights work to carry with them wherever they go.’
– Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Hastings College of the Law, US
– José Lindgren-Alves, Member of the Advisory Committee to the UN Human Rights Council and former member of CERD, Brazil
‘International human rights and international criminal law procedures for upholding the rights of victims represent a great breakthrough in theory, but they are of limited utility unless they are accessible to, and can be used effectively by, the victims and civil society advocates. This book is an invaluable guide to the complexities of these procedures and how they can be used to bring real change.’
– Philip Alston, New York University, School of Law, US and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
‘This is a wonderfully practical and straightforward guide for victims and those representing them on how to make international human rights bodies actually work. It explains in clear, accessible language how to get your issue or case before the UN, regional human rights bodies and the International Criminal Court, and what you can expect when you do so. The book fills the gap between theory and implementation nicely, and should be the go-to handbook for those doing human rights work to carry with them wherever they go.’
– Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Hastings College of the Law, US
Contents
Contents Introduction 1. International Human Rights Procedures 2. Regional Human Rights System 3. Advocacy at the International Criminal Court Conclusion Index
