International human rights law
[3][4][5][6] A more systemic perspective explains that international humanitarian law represents a function of international human rights law; it includes general norms that apply to everyone at all time as well as specialized norms which apply to certain situations such as armed conflict between both state and military occupation (i.e. IHL) or to certain groups of people including refugees (e.g. the 1951 Refugee Convention), children (the Convention on the Rights of the Child), and prisoners of war (the 1949 Third Geneva Convention).
The changes prophesied a more structured organization along with a requirement to review human rights cases every four years.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 also targets the promotion of legislation and policies towards reducing inequality.
[14] Established in 2001, the AU's purpose is to help secure Africa's democracy, human rights, and a sustainable economy, in particular by bringing an end to intra-African conflict and creating an effective and productive common market.
Pursuant to Article 63 (whereby it was to "come into force three months after the reception by the Secretary General of the instruments of ratification or adherence of a simple majority" of the OAU's member states), the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights came into effect on 21 October 1986, in honour of which 21 October was declared African Human Rights Day.
The commission has three broad areas of responsibility:[17] In pursuit of these goals, the commission is mandated to "collect documents, undertake studies and researches on African problems in the field of human and peoples' rights, organise seminars, symposia and conferences, disseminate information, encourage national and local institutions concerned with human and peoples' rights and, should the case arise, give its views or make recommendations to governments.
[23] There are many countries in Africa accused of human rights violations by the international community and NGOs.
Over the course of the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, the return to democracy in Latin America,[citation needed] and the thrust toward globalisation, the OAS made major efforts to reinvent itself to fit the new context.
[26] The IACHR is a permanent body which meets in regular and special sessions several times a year to examine allegations of human rights violations in the hemisphere.
Its two main functions are therefore adjudicatory and advisory: Many countries in the Americas, including Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela,[29] have been accused of human rights violations.
[34] All 47 member states of the Council of Europe have signed this convention, and are therefore under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
These include the treaty bodies attached to the seven currently active treaties, and the United Nations Human Rights Council complaints procedures, with Universal Periodic Review and United Nations Special Rapporteur (known as the 1235 and 1503 mechanisms respectively).
[49] The Paris Principles were defined at the first International Workshop on National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Paris from 7 to 9 October 1991, and adopted by UN Human Rights Commission Resolution 1992/54 of 1992 and General Assembly Resolution 48/134 of 1993.
[50] Universal jurisdiction is a controversial principle in international law, whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over people whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence or any other relationship to the prosecuting country.
In 1998, Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London following an indictment by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón under the universal-jurisdiction principle.
[52] Adolf Eichmann who was the former Nazi SS lieutenant colonel accused of overseeing the transfer of Jews to Holocaust death camps also persecuted in Israel in 1961.
