Human Rights Monitoring

Abstract

Human rights law is an increasing and evolving concept in the international, regional, and national systems and because of using human rights in politics, it is becoming a famous phrase that need to be discussed thoroughly and to know how the international, regional and national systems for human rights work in cases of violations. In Chapter I I discussed the concept of human rights and I traced the historical development of that concept since the natural law thinking and I also discussed the modern international human rights system which started with the United Nations Charter and the influence of the Universalism and Cultural Relativisms theories on the development of human rights. The development of human rights at the international level was also accompanied by another development at the regional level, and these necessitate discussing those systems mainly, the European, Inter –American and African system for the promotion and protection of human rights. Chapter II discussed the applicable international human rights and humanitarian law. Sometimes we find misunderstanding in differentiating between the two branches of law, and in order to understand the two systems well, there is a need to know the bodies empowered with observing human rights realization such as the General Assembly, the Security Council, International Court of Justice, General Assembly and the main human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, Convention on the rights of the Child among others and also the relevant treaties relating to humanitarian law. It is not enough to know the relevant human rights treaties, we need to know the relevant machineries responsible of monitoring the realizations of the rights mentioned in those treaties and to see if they are effective or not, and this is discussed in details in Chapter III. The Seven Committees established by the Seven main human rights treaties are: the Human Rights Committee, The Economic, Social and Cultural Committee, Child Rights Committee, Committee Against Torture, Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Committee on the Protection of Migrant Workers and their Families. The mandate and functions of these different Committees are mentioned in detail. These treaty-based mechanisms are in real need for reform especially the reporting system and in relation to this point the experience of the International Labour Organization is also discussed. Another important legal development is the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Human rights system is developed at the conventional level and also at the Charter- based level and there are also important mechanisms that monitor the realization and enjoyment of these different rights for all human beings all over the world. These mechanisms are established by the United Nations Charter and they are the General Assembly, the Security Council, The International Court of Justice, and most importantly the Commission on Human Rights. This Commission has different methods of monitoring human rights issues; these are the public 1235 procedure of 1967 and the 1503 procedure of 1970. Recently the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights started playing a major role in human rights issues especially in human rights education, technical cooperation programmes and in establishing national human rights institutions. These different mechanisms are using the same methods of monitoring mainly, gathering information, interviewing, visits to persons in detention and reporting. These mechanisms are political bodies, which are considered as one of the main defects in Charter-based monitoring system. Chapter V looks at the most developed regional system, which is the European system for human rights. I discussed the different treaties and mechanisms established to promote and protect human rights in the European countries. In Chapters VI and VII, I have discussed the Inter-American and the African systems respectively. Sudan has been scrutinized since the early 1990s for its bad human rights records. So Chapter VIII discusses the international and regional obligations of Sudan and the national monitoring system for human rights violations. Under international law any state party to any international treaty has the obligation to harmonize its national laws with its obligations and is also obliged to realize the different rights enumerated in those treaties and to do that Sudan has the duty to establish machineries that protect the individual’s rights under its territory. This Chapter includes the most important mechanisms that is, the Constitutional Court, Advisory Council for Human Rights, regular courts, and the Committee on the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children. The final Chapter IX is on conclusions and recommendations which will ensure an effective, functioning and reliable system for the promotion and protection of human rights at all levels whether international, regional or national level. Finally, there are four schedules.