Statement by Dr Ahmed Shaheed, Chair of the Board of Trustees, and Mr Marc Limon Executive Director, Universal Rights Group on the passing of Prof. Christof Heyns

by the URG team and URG Chair News, Prensa, URG News

Everyone at the Universal Rights Group (URG), board members and staff, are shocked and greatly saddened by the news that our friend and colleague, Professor Christof Heyns, passed away yesterday (28 March 2021). Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family. Christof was a giant of the human rights world. He allied a brilliant mind with a fierce determination …

Realizing rights, changing lives: The impact of the United Nations human rights system on the enjoyment of children’s rights

by Geneva Beyond the Council, In focus: domestic implementation of universal norms, Policy reports, Reportes

Realizing rights, changing lives: The impact of the United Nations human rights system on the enjoyment of children’s rights

The international community has invested enormous time and energy in building the international human rights system over the past 70 years. Yet for as long as that system has existed, commentators have questioned the degree to which it is capable of, and is succeeding in, securing real-world change – i.e. demonstrable improvements in the on-the-ground enjoyment of human rights. According …

Putting people at the heart of the human rights treaty body system

by Ashley Bowe, Senior Human Rights Advisor, SPC RRRT and Joshua Cooper, Lecturer, University of Hawai’i, National Universal Periodic Review Task Force Co-Chair, US Human Rights Network Blog, Blog, By invitation, International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes

Samoa held a ground-breaking treaty body session on child rights, evidencing the benefits of extending these sessions beyond Geneva. Calls for treaty body committees to undertake their sessions  on the ground have been made for decades. The first ever such session recently took place in the Pacific, providing empirical evidence of the significant opportunities and slight obstacles of this practice. The genesis of this session can be traced back …

Is the world really ‘backsliding’ on human rights, and is it getting worse with the Covid-19 pandemic?

by the URG team Blog, Blog, In focus: domestic implementation of universal norms

Even before the outbreak of the current COVID-19 pandemic, commentary on the worldwide human rights situation was characterised, to a large degree, by negative assertions of an unfolding human rights crisis. Powered by influential voices at the UN, as well as by civil society and the media, the general public narrative was often one of backsliding in the world’s major …

The UN human rights treaty system: Getting closer to the ground?

by Christof Heyns, Professor of Human Rights Law, Univeristy of Pretoria and Member of the UN Human Rights Committee and Willem Gravett, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria Blog, Blog, By invitation, International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes

In a 2017 post on this site (and drawing on an idea advanced 20 years ago by Christof Heyns and Frans Viljoen ), we argued that the current process of reform of the human rights treaty system should include efforts to “bring the treaty system closer to the people on the ground.” More specifically, treaty bodies should not only conduct their work in Geneva, but also hold meetings away from their home base, in particular in the …

The Universal Periodic Review

Clustering and the integrated implementation of recommendations: The key to unlocking the complementary power of the UN’s compliance mechanisms

by Marc Limon, Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group and Mariana Montoya, Universal Rights Group International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes, Policy reports

Clustering and the integrated implementation of recommendations: The key to unlocking the complementary power of the UN’s compliance mechanisms

Over the past seventy years, United Nations (UN) member States have elaborated and adopted eight ‘core’ international human rights treaties. Together with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, these conventions provide the normative and legal backbone of the UN human rights system. Since their adoption, the number of States choosing to ratify and thus become Party to those treaties has …

Mid-way to universality! CTI2024 supporting all States to ratify and implement the UN Convention against Torture

by Dr. Alice Edwards, Head of the CTI Secretariat Beyond the Council, Blog, Blog, By invitation

Guiding States on how to prevent and respond to torturous forms of abuse of power or position is what the UN Convention against Torture is all about. Yet, despite torture being long condemned and the prohibition recognised as a jus cogens international norm, there continue to be grave abuses perpetrated in many countries and in all regions. In others, lack …

How UN Treaty Bodies can better address corruption and its negative impact on human rights

by Patrick Mutzenberg, Director of the Centre for Civil and Political Rights. Blog, By invitation, Contemporary and emerging human rights issues

It is now widely recognised that corruption negatively affects the enjoyment of civil and political rights, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. Corruption not only has a negative impact on the ability of States to implement their treaty-based human rights obligations, but it also directly affects the population of such countries. This concern was raised several times by …

Supreme Court of Spain: UN Treaty Body individual decisions are legally binding

by Dr. Koldo Casla Beyond the Council, Blog, By invitation, International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes

The Spanish Supreme Court has established that the views expressed by UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies in individual complaints are binding on the State. The Court ordered Spain to pay €600,000 in compensation to Ángela González for the responsibility of its authorities in relation to the death of her daughter. Her daughter was murdered by her father in an unsupervised …

Human rights treaty bodies in the field: The experience of the African regional system

by Christof Heyns, Professor of Human Rights Law, Univeristy of Pretoria and Member of the UN Human Rights Committee and Abiola Idowu-Ojo, Acting Deputy Secretary of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Blog, By invitation, International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes

In a 2017 post  on this site, Christof Heyns and Willem Gravett proposed the idea of external sessions for the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies – they should meet at least once a year for part of the session outside Geneva, in order to ‘bring the system closer to the people’. This idea generated considerable interest, including in the recent report by the Geneva …