International human rights law refers to the body of international law designed to promote and protect human rights at the international, regional and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law is primarily made up of treaties, agreements between states intended to have binding legal effect between the parties that have agreed to them; and customary international law, rules of law derived from the consistent conduct of states acting out of the belief that the law required them to act that way. Other international human rights instruments while not legally binding contribute to the implementation, understanding and development of international human rights law and have been recognised as a source of political obligation.
Enforcement of international human rights law can occur on either a domestic, regional or international level. States that ratify human rights treaties commit themselves to respecting those rights and ensuring that their domestic law is compatible with international legislation. When Domestic Law fails to provide a remedy for human rights abuses parties may be able to resort to regional or international mechanisms for enforcing human rights.
International Human rights law is closely related to, but distinct from international humanitarian law. Similar, because the substantive norms they contain are often similar or related – for example both provide a protection from torture. Distinct because they are regulated by legally distinct frameworks and usually operate in different contexts and regulate different relationships. Generally, human rights are understood to regulate the relationship between states and individuals in the context of ordinary life, while humanitarian law regulates the actions of a belligerent state and those parties it comes into contact with, both hostile and neutral, within the context of an armed conflict.
Read more about International Human Rights Law: The United Nations System, International Human Rights Treaties, Regional Protection and Institutions, Monitoring, Implementation and Enforcement of Human Rights Law
Famous quotes containing the words human, rights and/or law:
“A lock-jaw that bends a man’s head back to his heels, hydrophobia, that makes him bark at his wife and babes, insanity, that makes him eat grass; war, plague; cholera, famine, indicate a certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by human crime, must have its outlet by human suffering.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled—because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“We’re the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C’mon be a glorified wreck like me.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)