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Historical Evolution of International Human Rights Law

Jan 07, 2024, 8 min read

Historical Evolution of International Human Rights Law

  • Key terms
    • Declaration: is the official statement about a situation or plan. non-binding/enforceable
    • Convention/covenant/treaty: the legally binding agreement between contracting states
    • A Clause: a section of a written binding document that defines duties, rights, and privileges of
    • Homogeneity: only one ethnicity in a country and don’t want to intermix
    • Heterogeneity:
  • Minority rights started through the League of Nations through ‘’minority protection guarantee”
  • International Labor Organization set as the standard for protection of workers
  • United Nations’s modern international Human Rights law contributed creative developments

Timeline

  • Early 13th Century Europe:
    • In English School of thoughts and discourses about ‘Liberty’ and ‘Rights’
    • Concept of Rule of Law: limit sovereign body (gov, parliament, leader) from using absolute power
    • Religious Scripts: detailing proper conduct of society

      Ex: Sharia law’s people’s rights and limitations

  • Early cases of Declarations of Human Rights
    • Magna Carta (1215): rights for nobles
      • Principle of equality before the law: in court, everyone is treated equally
      • Right to property
      • Religious freedom
    • The Declaration of Arbroath in Scotland (1320):
      • Right to glory > Glory, honor, riches
  • Two origins of theories?
    • Liberty-based theory: individuals are free from government’s demands and interference on free choice
    • Rights-based theory: the allowed ability and limitations of individuals in society, which states must respect and maintain.
  • 18th Century
    • Philosophers/thinkers: ‘natural rights’ as rights which should be enjoyed by all human beings
    • United States’ Declaration of Independence (1776): rights to be enjoyed by all (liberty & equality)
      • Natural rights: rights to life, rights to property
      • American Revolutionary War: British Loyalist vs Separatist, established new state
        • Unequal treatment of colonies, British taxation, oppression
      • This declaration was more about establishment of a new state instead of about human rights, which is expanded on in Bills of Rights
    • French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789):
      • inspired by US’s Declaration: against French monarchy and taxation
        • Absolute monarchy to more democratic republic ones
        • Resistant to oppression
      • Declarations
        • Natural Rights: of ‘Men are born and remain free and equal in rights’
        • Rules of Law: every one, even the state, must operate under the law. No one is above the law.
        • Separation of Power: 3 government body
        • Concept of Liberty (Art 4): ‘able to do anything that doesn’t harm others’
        • Fair trial process (Art 6-10)
      • of Served as guide for
        • The constitutions of other European countries
        • The constitutions of former colonies
        • The European convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe)
    • United States’ Bill of Rights (1791): the expansion of the US Declaration of Independence, focusing on human rights in relation to the state (12 amendments)
      • Freedom of Religion (Am 1)
      • Rights to bare arms (Am 1)
      • Freedom of person and property (Am 4)
      • Fair Trail (Am 4-8)
      • Abolition of Slavery (Am 13)
  • World War 2: Holocaust: Fascism genocide, abuse of human rights, slavery
    • Ignored ILO
    • Operation Paperclip: secret intelligence program where American taking leaders of Nazi Genocide to high positions in US
      • NASA, rocket building, research
    • Nuremburg Trails/Code: bringing German concentration camp workers to justice
    • Early British colonizers killed first settlers (Aboriginals) of Australia

The Role of International Law

  • Individuals used to be considered property of states: the treatment of their own citizens are not subject to review on the international level (no breaking human rights laws)
  • The Alien Law: states have obligation to care for another state’s emissary/official (vice-versa)
  • Protection of Minorities:
  • International law not only affects relations between states, but now affects the conduct of states (Human Rights)
    • If a state abuse Human Rights inside it’s own country, it is due punishment/consequences
    • The Law of Aliens: the duty of states to ‘grant certain priviledges’ to head of states or diplomats in one’s own country to one another
      • Reparations and reprisals: the principle of doing wrong to a person = doing wrong to the state they’re from
        • The person must go through all lower levels methods before resorting to international claim
        • 1794 Jay Treaty (US & UK): it became the modus operandi, especially during the industrial revolution
  • The 2 Schools of Thoughts
    • National/Equality Treatment: offer same rights to foreigners as it offers to own citizens
      • Problem: authority could lower how citizens are treated to abuse foreigners (State of emergency)
    • International Standard of Treatment: codified standard for proper treatment of foreigners internationally no matter domestic laws.
  • Diplomatic Law: head of state (Kings, emperors, royal family) messengers, diplomats are granted special protection and treated as part of the state
    • Developed through: Reciprocity in treating one another’s representative fairly between states
    • Framework on Consular Relations between states (Vienna Convention) Granted:
      • Immunity to prosecution of another state
      • No pressure or hindrance on carrying out their tasks

1. The Laws of War | International Humanitarian Law

  • Historical Evolution of Laws of War
    • St Augustine’s writing on ‘just wars’
    • 13th Century: Viqayet of Spain: code of conduct for warfare
    • Bilateral agreements on case by case conflicts: to respect one another’s humanitarian laws
  • Contemporary Humanitarian Laws
    • Law of war by Hague Convention (1899) agreed on parameters for conduct of warfare (adopted in 1907)
    • Geneva Conventions: to safeguard basic rights of non-combatants and civilians
      • To protect medical personnel and the International Red Cross
      • Torture: political prisoner
      • Against Genocide: Rwanda, Cambodia, Balkans
      • International Criminal Courts
        • Nuremberg and Tokyo court
        • International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
        • International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
        • Extra-ordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
    • 1972 Convention: Biological/toxic weapons
    • 1980 Convention on injurious weapons: mines, booby traps…

2. Slavery

  • 1815 Congress of Vienna condemned slave trade in morality and humanity.
  • Early 19th Century: UK in Brussels Conference of 1890 to search ships for slaves in African seas
    • With Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Prussia, France, and US
  • Continued by League of Nations
    • 1924 Slave Commission
  • Customary International Law codified by Slavery Convention
    • 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery

3. Minority Group

  • Congress of Vienna in 1815: Austria, Prussia, Russia declared to give representation and national institutions to Polish minority
  • The Treaty of Berlin of 1878: to deal with the dissolution of Ottoman Empire and the new Balkan
  • Could be connected to rise of nationalism
    • After World War 1: the redrawing of state boundaries were done with consideration of nationalist aspirations
  • Europe’s Nationalistic Problems can be resolved in 2 ways
    1. Transferring groups from one state to another
      • Greek & Bulgarians: no pressure from state, provided unbiased body, help transport, sell, register property/land
      • Germany & Poland
    2. Redrawing boundaries: due to the wish of the residents in each area
      • break-up of the Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, and German Empires → free land for states to grab
      • or made into new states Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia
  • League of Nations
    • Protection of minority groups under the auspices of the League of Nations was twofold:
      • guarantees embodied in mandates/trust territory treaties
      • guarantees imposed on States (primarily the defeated States) in the Peace Treaties.
    • ‘minorities section’ heard by 2 other states representatives before going to tripartite committee
      • The 2 must be unbiased
    • limited success enforcing the minority guarantee clauses

4. International Labor Law

  • International Labor Organization (ILO) created in 1919, Motivated by
    • 20th Century: Exploitative working conditions, health and well-being of workers: working hours
    • Lack of vulnerable groups such as children labor protection: minimum age requirement
    • Fear threat of workers revolution that could cause chaos
  • After World War 2: Europe was full of refugees
    • Labor shortage
    • Can’t count actual population
    • Economic shortfalls
  • minority and sectoral protection was replaced by a concerted global attempt to secure basic rights for all, without distinction

Contemporary

  • United Nations Human Rights Law
  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights: any UN members joining must have some of these clauses in their constitution
    • Created because WW2
    • Is a milestone document
    • Is used to promote HR in the world

Question

  • Why is it important to learn?
    • History, evolution
  • How does it influence the present?

Possible Essays or Ideas to explore

  • Does developments in Human Rights Law only happen on event based triggers?

References

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