The International Protection of Human Rights – Instruments

Human rights are the inherent rights we all have as human beings that ensure life and its basic attributes such as liberty, food, health, education, work regardless of any factors. They are universal and inalienable, indivisible and interdependent, equal and non-discriminatory and first set up in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR) that provides the principles of human rights conventions, treaties and other legal instruments.

These instruments are either non-binding declarations adopted by organs of the United Nations (UN), or legally binding treaties. According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), there are 9 core international human rights instruments (please see the links attached to them):

Expert Bodies established by UN legislative bodies:

• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Expert Bodies established under particular Treaties:

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

• International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

• Convention on the Rights of the Child

• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

• International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

• Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

• International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

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International human rights instruments can be divided into global instruments – as the ones above - to which any state in the world can be a party, and regional instruments, which are limited to specific states according to their geographical position.

Examples of Regional Instruments

• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

• European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

• American Convention on Human Rights

• Arab Charter on Human Rights (ACHR)

• African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights

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There may also be regulatory guiding principle that are settled multilaterally by states through repeated, consistent and uniform practice followed by a sense of legal obligation called

opinio juris sive necessitatis, or simply said opinio juris

that becomes a custom and thus classifies as Customary International Law (CIL). CIL is made by states as it represents their behaviour and well-recognized and followed by them.