CYIL vol. 7 (2016)

496

MARTIN KOPA

CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ

Pospíšil, Ivo, Týč, Vladimír et al.

International Human Rights Obligations of Post-Communist Countries:

the Cases of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

[Mezinárodní lidskoprávní závazky postkomunistických zemí: případy

České

republiky a Slovenska]

Leges, Prague: 2016, 208 pp.

I will never forget one particular day of my legal life. I was a young legal trainee

and, as part of defense in a particular criminal case, we raised an argument based on

the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights concerning Article 6 (3) (d)

of the European Convention on Human Rights. Our client never had a chance to

pose questions to the key witness in the case. But the judge said in the courtroom:

“Look, counsel, I haven’t read that case and I never will. Can you give me an argument

based on relevant domestic law?”

I was just thinking to myself:

“What’s the point of the

international treaties if those who should apply them despise them?”

Just for the record,

our client was convicted.

Authors of the book that I am about to review probably raised the same question

– What is the point of the international human rights treaties? International law

of human rights has always been regarded as law which is international but the

human rights aspect of it makes it somewhat different. But what is it that makes it so

different? Do states decide to ratify human rights treaties for different reasons than

other kinds of international treaties? What are the specifics of negotiation of human

rights treaties and their ratification? What role do they play in domestic law, then?

And how are they applied in practice by domestic courts and NGOs? To narrow the

questions raised, the authors decided to answer these questions in relation to two

countries they all come from – the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Have the authors

persuasively answered the questions above? If yes, how? Let’s see. Just for security,

I have to warn you that there are spoilers ahead.

1. Human rights treaties in international politics and international law

One of the co-authors of the book’s first chapter once wrote that, in general,

lawyers do think about a lot of stuff but they do not spend the time necessary to

actually know something.

He is a man of his word because the first chapter (and

the ninth chapter) are the most empirical ones and full of data. The authors of the

first chapter simply have their opinions backed up. The main question they asked

was: why do states decide to join international human rights treaties? They analyzed

See Smekal, Hubert.

Malenovský, Kühn, Bobek, Komárek etc.

[online]. Politica mundi, 25. 5. 2014. Available

online at: