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The Women, Peace and Security Agenda (WPSA) is an international framework addressing the disproportionate impact of armed conflict on women and girls and promoting their meaningful participation in peacebuilding efforts. The Security Council called on Member States to develop National Action Plans (NAPs) to operationalize the four pillars of the Agenda. This study looks at the relevant steps undertaken by both Germany and the European Union. The author calls for improvements on either level and makes four recommendations.
In the past decades, scholars and courts have paid considerable attention to the extraterritorial applicability of human rights treaties. By contrast, the extraterritorial application of constitutional rights has received comparable scholarly attention only in the United States. Specifically, there is a paucity of comparative research in this area, which contributes to the prevailing view that human rights law provides the proper framework under which domestic courts should examine extraterritoriality questions under constitutional law.
This article argues that domestic constitutional regimes and their judicial enforcers can and should provide an important counterweight to the deadlocked extraterritoriality debate at the international level. Using two case studies from Germany and the United States, it shows that domestic constitutional courts are sometimes better suited than treaty bodies to guard the normative values of human dignity and universality in an extraterritoriality context. This is most apparent in the case of Germany, which has a long tradition of integration into international multi-level governance systems and "bottom-up" resistance based on fundamental rights within such systems. Recent cases from the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) about the extraterritorial application of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) to foreign intelligence gathering and climate change support this theory. However, an independent constitutional approach can also achieve some normative effects in domestic systems that are more isolated from the international human rights system. Thus, the US Supreme Court likewise used domestic constitutional doctrine to sidestep the American government's strictly territorial interpretation of the ICCPR and employ a functional approach to the extraterritorial applicability of fundamental rights in the case of detention of suspected terrorists in the Guantánamo Bay naval base.
The study of these two examples does not purport to be comprehensive or even representative of the world’s diverse array of constitutions and their relationships with international human rights law. However, the independent power of constitutional frameworks in these two disparate cases should all the more provide an impetus for increased comparative research into constitutional extraterritoriality regimes and their value for the project of human rights.
The question of whether the monitoring bodies have competence concerning reservations is at the centre of the discussion of reservations to human rights treaties that has occupied many international legal scholars over the last few decades. The Istanbul Convention’s treaty monitoring body, GREVIO, is the only human rights treaty monitoring body with a direct competence concerning reservations. However, as practice to date shows, it does not make much use of this power. This is a big disappointment considering all the efforts of other bodies in the past and the doctrinal positions of various scholars. The main aims of this article are threefold to: present GREVIO’s practice to date concerning reservations, provide a brief historical overview of how other human rights treaty bodies have approached their role concerning reservations, and finally, attempt to explain why GREVIO has abandoned a more proactive position on reservations.
Thus far, research into reservations to treaties has often overlooked reservations formulated to both European Social Charters (and its Protocols) and the relevant European Committee of Social Rights practices. There are several pressing reasons to further explore this gap in existing literature. First, an analysis of practices within the European Social Charters (and Protocols) will provide a fuller picture of the reservations and responses of treaty bodies. Second, in the context of previous landmark events it is worth noting the practices of another human rights treaty monitoring body that is often omitted from analyses. Third, the very fact that the formulation of reservations to treaties gives parties such far-reaching flexibility to shape their contractual obligations (à la carte) is surprising. An important outcome of the research is the finding that, despite the far-reaching flexibility present in the treaties analysed, both the States Parties and the European Committee of Social Rights generally treat them as conventional treaties to which the general rules on reservations apply. Consequently, there is no basis for assuming that the mere fact of adopting the à la carte system in a treaty with no reservation clause implies a formal prohibition of reservations or otherwise discourages their formulation.
Dispersing the fog
(2020)
Countries in the Middle East generally fare poorly in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. One of the biggest challenges for the anti-corruption-regime in the Middle East are the many forms of corruption that are not being recognised as such on the local level, if assessed against a culturally relativistic benchmark. Our paper seeks to establish a unifying ground by providing a functional analysis of corruption which is both, normatively guiding and culturally sensitive. We demarcate our work as follows: (1) our reference point will be the phenomenon of institutional corruption, whereas (2) our working definition of corruption will conceive of corruption as a violation of role-specific norms that is motivated by the role-occupier’s private motives. In an attempt to offer a comprehensive approach, corruption will be viewed on two differing levels. On the external level, we will begin with an investigation of features within a norm-order that typically instantiate corruption. We will argue that corruption is externally conditioned by an authority’s inability to enforce and (re)establish the norms of conduct that ought to be action-guiding in office. This changes the expectation-structure within a norm-order and erodes public trust in the authorities, giving rise to willing perpetrators. Complementing this, the internal level of our framework will emphasize the motivational deficits of corrupt acts. It will be argued that this deficit can typically be found in societies that lack civic virtues. This, we suspect, is the functional reason why corrupt societies have such a hard time to overcome the problem: they lack both features and are, as a consequence, caught in a vicious circle as they struggle to strengthen civil society and consolidate institutional structures – whereas corruption increasingly disappears from the radar as it becomes accepted reality.
This chapter consists of three parts. In the first part, I will give a short overview about the integration of the protection of the environment into German constitutional law. This section will start with the presentation of the relevant provision, Art. 20a BL. Then, I will elaborate on its legal character. In the second part, I will make some brief remarks on the practical implications of Art. 20a BL. Finally, I will present some preliminary conclusions.
Back in 1949, and thus only one year after the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the four Geneva Conventions were adopted, providing a strong signal for a new world order created after 1945 with the United Nations at their centre and combining as their goals both the maintenance of peace and security and the protection of human rights, but also recognising, realistically, that succeeding generations had so far not yet been saved from the scourge of war. Hence, the continued need for rules governing, and limiting, the means and methods of warfare once an armed conflict has erupted. At the same time, the international community has unfortunately not been able so far to fully safeguard individual human rights, its efforts to that effect and the continuous development of international human rights law over the years notwithstanding.
The last years have been affected by Covid-19 and the international emergency mecha-nism to deal with health-related threats. The effects of this period manifested differ-ently worldwide, depending on matters such as international relations, national policies, power dynamics etc. Additionally, the impact of this time will likely have long-term effects which are yet to be known. This paper gives a critical overview of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) mechanism in the context of Covid-19. It does so by explaining the legal framework for states of emergency, specifically in the context of a PHEIC, while considering its restrictions and limitations on human rights. It further outlines issues in the manifestation of global protections and limitations on human rights during Covid-19. Lastly, considering the likelihood of future PHEICs and the known systemic obstructions, this paper offers ways to im-prove this mechanism from a holistic, non-zero-sum perspective.
Narratives of Belonging
(2017)
Die Darstellungen genealogischer Netzwerke waren in der Antike Ausdruck der Weltsicht ihrer Erzähler, mit deren Hilfe Nähe und Distanz zwischen verschiedenen Gruppen und Völkern ausgedrückt und hergestellt werden konnte. Auch Paulus bedient sich genealogischer Argumente, um die Beziehung nicht-jüdischer Christus-Gläubiger zu Israel und ihrem Gott zu verdeutlichen. Es handelt sich um eine ethnozentrische Argumentation, deren Fokus aber gleichzeitig eindeutig theozentrisch ist.
This article seeks to explain the 2013 coalition between the CDU and the Greens in the German federal state of Hesse. It applies traditional office-seeking and policy-seeking coalition formation theories to the case alongside a new explanation underscoring the influence of past behaviour on coalition partnership; namely, the negative impact of a pre-electoral commitment breach on future coalition formation. The results show that pure office-seeking cannot explain the coalition outcome. Instead, as the analysis of textual data extracted from political parties' manifestos shows, there has been a constant process of policy approximation between the CDU and the Greens in Hesse. Additionally, we find evidence suggesting that the SPD's breach on their promise not to rely on support by the Left Party in 2008 shaped the CDU's refusal to coalesce with the SPD in 2013. The findings add to our understanding of the interplay between office-seeking and policy-seeking motivations as well as the personal enmities of key actors in shaping the coalition formation. The study further offers insights into the new German coalition option between the Greens and the CDU, which can serve as a blueprint at the national level.
The right to privacy in the digital age generates new challenges for the international jurisdiction. The following article deals with such challenges. Therefore it firstly defines the term of privacy in general and presents an international legal framework. With whisteblower Snowden a huge political discourse was initiated and the article gives insights into its further development. In 2015 the Human Rights Council for the first time announced a special rapporteur on the right to privacy. However, the discourse is not only taking place on a political level, also civil society organizations advocate more stringent regulations and prosecutions against violations of the right to privacy. Moreover the importance of the technology sector becomes clear. Companies like Microsoft are increasingly taking responsibility to protect digital media against unjustified data misuse, surveillance, collection and storage. But whereas the IT sector is developing very quickly, legislative processes do so rather slowly. Lastly, the individual is also hold to account. To protect oneself against data misuse is to a great extent acting self-responsible. Still, therefore information on protection must be clear and accessible for everyone.
Human Rights
(2010)
Xenophobia
(2008)
Aliens, intregration
(2008)
The monitoring system of human rights treaty obligation : colloquium, Potsdam, 22./23. November 1996
(1998)
Human Rights
(2002)
Dignity after measure
(2005)
Human rights can be understood as a multi-faceted concept which needs a strong legal basis, namely, a set of legal guarantees in human rights treaties and an increasing number of monitoring mechanisms. Following the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of December 10, 1948, various multi-lateral treaties for the protection of human rights have been negotiated and entered into force. They are not restricted to civil and political rights and take a much broader approach. All have monitoring mechanisms acting on a legal basis. The important European system with its strong, judicial monitoring mechanism is providing an effective human rights protection focused on civil and political rights. In the Görgülü case (2004), the German Federal Constitutional Court underlined the importance of the European Court’s judgments and of the ECHR as a legally binding instrument for the protection of human rights.
This volume discusses the impact of human rights law on other fields of international law. Does international human rights law modify other fields of international law? Contributions focus on possible spillover effects of human rights on international economic or international criminal law. Does international human rights law have a streamlining effect on international law as a whole? This might be identified as a process of constitutionalisation. In this book, human rights can be understood as one of the core principles of international legal order and thus have an effect on the general law of treaties or on the settlement of disputes.
Although human rights law is a relatively young field of international law, its content and core values today are of major importance for the interpretation of international law as a whole. As we witness a redefinition of sovereignty as a responsibility of states towards the people and a shift to greater relevance of the individual in international law in general, it is a logical consequence that human rights have an impact on other areas of international law.
Inhalt: - Kurzzusammenfassung - I. Introduction - II. Current challenges to the United Nations Human Rights Programme - III. The Secretary General’s Reform report “In larger Freedom” and its impact for the human rights programme - IV. The High Commissioner’s Plan of Action of May 2005 - V. Negotiations on the establishment of the Human Rights Council and first Council activities - VI. Reform of the treaty body system and debates over the creation of a unified standing treaty body
Content: I. The nature and form of international law 1. The acceptance of the existence of an international legal order 2. The legal position of the individual in international law II. Obligations of states in the protection of international human rights 1. Treaty-based human rights obligations 2. The nature of treaty-based human rights obligations 3. The ”absolute” and ”objective” character of human rights treaty obligations 4. Human rights conventions as self-contained regimes 5. The problem of characterisation of human rights obligations of states III. Human rights obligations arising from general principles of international law 1. Obligations erga omnes and human rights norms 2. The outlawing of genocide as obligation erga omnes 3. Protection from slavery as obligation erga omnes 4. The outlawing of acts of aggression as obligation erga omnes 5. Protection from racial discrimination as obligation erga omnes 6. The basic rights of the human person as obligation erga omnes 7. Jus Cogens and the search for peremptory norms of human rights 8. International crimes and human rights norms 9. The relationship between the concepts: erga omnes, jus cogens, international crime and human rights IV. International instruments for the coercive enforcement of state obligations to ‘respect and ensure’ human rights 1. Countermeasures as consequences of breach of treaties in international law 2. Application of reprisals for the enforcement of treaty-based human rights obligations 3. Intervention for the protection of human rights in international law 4. Intervention by the Security Council for the protection of human rights: the situation before the East-West détente 5. Humanitarian intervention after the end of the Cold War 6. The legal nature of ECOWAS intervention in the Liberian Civil War 7. The legality of NATO’s intervention in Kosovo 8. Some instances of intervention with mixed motives V. Non-forceful measures for the enforcement of states’ human rights obligations 1. Economic and financial pressure as means of enforcing states’ obligation to respect and observe human rights 2. The application of the clausula rebus sic stantibus for the protection of human rights 3. The enforcement of human rights through the World Bank 4. The enforcement of human rights through the ILO 5. Diplomatic recognition as an instrument for securing a state's respect and promotion of human rights 6. Refusal to comply with an extradition agreement as a means of enforcing a state’s human rights obligations 7. Denial of immunity as a means of enforcing a state’s human rights obligations 8. Publicity as an instrument for the enforcement of human rights VI. Judicial enforcement of state obligations to ‘respect and ensure’ human rights 1. Enforcement of human rights through International Criminal Tribunals 2. The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia 3. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 4. The International Special Court of Sierra Leone Résumé
Between 2002 and 2006 the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe counted with great international support to hand a demobilization process of right-wing paramilitary groups, along with the implementation of transitional justice policies such as penal prosecutions and the creation of a National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (NCRR) to address justice, truth and reparation for victims of paramilitary violence. The demobilization process began when in 2002 the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) agreed to participate in a government-sponsored demobilization process. Paramilitary groups were responsible for the vast majority of human rights violations for a period of over 30 years. The government designed a special legal framework that envisaged great leniency for paramilitaries who committed serious crimes and reparations for victims of paramilitary violence. More than 30,000 paramilitaries have demobilized under this process between January 2003 and August 2006. Law 975, also known as the “Justice and Peace Law”, and Decree 128 have served as the legal framework for the demobilization and prosecutions of paramilitaries. It has offered the prospect of reduced sentences to demobilized paramilitaries who committed crimes against humanity in exchange for full confessions of crimes, restitution for illegally obtained assets, the release of child soldiers, the release of kidnapped victims and has also provided reparations for victims of paramilitary violence. The Colombian demobilization process presents an atypical case of transitional justice. Many observers have even questioned whether Colombia can be considered a case of transitional justice. Transitional justice measures are often taken up after the change of an authoritarian regime or at a post-conflict stage. However, the particularity of the Colombian case is that transitional justice policies were introduced while the conflict still raged. In this sense, the Colombian case expresses one of the key elements to be addressed which is the tension between offering incentives to perpetrators to disarm and demobilize to prevent future crimes and providing an adequate response to the human rights violations perpetrated throughout the course of an internal conflict. In particular, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes require a fine balance between the immunity guarantees offered to ex-combatants and the sought of accountability for their crimes. International law provides the legal framework defining the rights to justice, truth and reparations for victims and the corresponding obligations of the State, but the peace negotiations and conflicted political structures do not always allow for the fulfillment of those rights. Thus, the aim of this article is to analyze what kind of transition may be occurring in Colombia by focusing on the role that transitional justice mechanisms may play in political negotiations between the Colombian government and paramilitary groups. In particular, it seeks to address to what extent such processes contribute to or hinder the achievement of the balance between peacebuilding and accountability, and thus facilitate a real transitional process.
Der Autor diskutiert in seinem Aufsatz kritisch den Friedensvertrag von Lomé, der am 7. Juli 1999 offiziell den bewaffneten Konflikt in Sierra Leone beendete. Nach einer kurzen Zusammenfassung der allgemeinen Regelungen des Vertrags stellt der Autor die in Artikel 9 des Abkommens vorgesehene Generalamnestie den bindenden Grundsätzen des internationalen Rechts gegenüber. Internationale Verbrechen, wie Völkermord, Kriegsverbrechen oder Folterung sind als Verstoß gegen ius cogens-Normen von allen Staaten zu verfolgen. Nach der Erörterung der betreffenden Konventionen, internationalen Abkommen und Fallentscheidungen des IGH, die diesen Grundsatz festschreiben, beschreibt er den - Friedensprozessen inhärenten - Konflikt, ein Gleichgewicht zwischen notwendiger Versöhnung und strafrechtlicher Verfolgung zu finden. Bei der Betrachtung des Fallrechts schließt Phenyo neuere Entscheidungen ein, wie die des britischen House of Lords im Fall Pinochet, die sowohl nationalen wie internationalen Gerichten das Recht auf Strafverfolgung internationaler Verbrechen zugestand. Stellvertretend für die weite Kritik der Generalamnestie des Lomé-Abkommens zitiert der Autor den VN-Generalsekretär Kofi Annan, der die Generalamnestie als unvereinbar mit der Tätigkeit und Aufgabe der internationalen Straftribunale in Den Haag und Arusha sowie des zukünftigen Internationalen Strafgerichtshofes ansieht. Phenyo schließt sich mit seiner kurzen Analyse des Friedensabkommens der kritischen Haltung Annans an und sieht nur eine geringe Möglichkeit für die Durchsetzung der fraglichen Amnestie, deren Gültigkeit durch die wiederaufgeflammten Kämpfe in Sierra Leone auch faktisch in Frage gestellt worden sind. (trai)
Learning from the past
(2009)
I. Human Rights and Democratic Movements in Armenia - Human Rights as an “Attractor” of Europeanization Processes of Transcaucasian “Neither War nor Peace Societies” (Artur Mkrtichyan) - Human Rights Defender’s Office Armenia (Larisa Alaverdyan) - The Factor of Human Rights Protection as Criteria for the Development in the Social System (Hovhannes Hovhannisyan) - Two Priorities and Two Suggestions in Leading the Way to Human Rights Protection (Gevork Manoukian) - Intrastate Mechanisms of the Protection of Human Political Rights and Freedoms in Armenia (Ashot A. Alexanyan) - The Future of Democracy in Armenia: Institutional and Mass Beliefs Perspectives (Alexander Markarov) II. Human Rights and Education in Armenia - Human Rights in the System of Civic Education Values (Valery Poghosyan) - The Role of Academic Knowledge in Maintaining Tolerance (Ani Muradyan) - Rights of a Child or Duties of Adults...? (Mira Antonyan) - The Right to Education for Children with Special Needs: Inclusive Education in Armenia (Marina Hovhannissyan) - Human Rights Awareness and UNDP Evaluation in Armenia (Kristina Henschen) - Human Rights Education in Armenia – A Base Line Study (Litit Umroyan; Lucig Danielian) III. Human Rights and Minorities in Armenia - Human Rights, Minorities and Human Rights Education in Armenia: An External Perspective (Claudia Mahler; Anja Mihr; Reetta Toivanen) - Minorities and Identity in Armenia (Tatevik Margaryan) - Legal and Real Opportunities for the National Minorities Residing on the Territory of the Republic of Armenia (Hranush Kharatyan)