CYIL 2014

256

JAN LHOTSKÝ

CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ

Key words:

treaty body strengthening, human rights, universal level, Unified Standing

Treaty Body, comprehensive reporting calendar, treaty bodies.

On the Author:

JUDr. Ing. Jan Lhotský is a Ph.D. candidate in international law

at the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University. During his studies he participated in

a number of educational programmes, e.g. at the European University Institute in

Florence, the United Nations in Geneva (Human Rights Council) and later in New

York (Human Rights Committee), and at the University of Salzburg. Within his

studies and research he focuses primarily on the role of the individual in international

law, in particular within the fields of international human rights protection and

international criminal law.

1. Introduction

After World War II, the idea of human rights became one of the most influential

incentives for the humanization of societies in various parts of the world. One of

the core features of the whole concept of human rights is that all people are entitled

to enjoy them. In other words, human rights are universal. Nevertheless, the idea is

not only a philosophical discipline; it has become a very important part of substantive

international law.

This paper aims to elaborate on the established mechanisms that currently exist at

the international level with potentially global influence. That is to say, the article will

not discuss the regional human rights protection mechanisms that exist in Europe,

America and Africa. It will focus on those mechanisms at the universal (global) level

of human rights protection that are designed for all states and on their possible

contribution to the human rights situation in these countries.

The cornerstone of the universal level of human rights protection was formed by

the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Although it was

in the form of a UN General Assembly resolution and therefore not legally binding,

it was the first time in history when representatives of states from different regions

and different cultural and political backgrounds from all over the world agreed on the

wording of a human rights catalogue that declared fundamental rights for all people.

The idea at the Commission on Human Rights led by Eleanor Roosevelt at

that time was to agree on a non-binding Universal Declaration and after that to

elaborate legally binding treaties that would transform the declared human rights

into international law. Although in the second half of the 1940s it was possible to

finalize the work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights within two years,

with regard to the drop in post-war optimism in international cooperation and the

start of what was later known as the Cold War, it took nearly another two decades

Of the then 58 UNmember states, 48 voted for the declaration and eight states abstained (two states were

not present). Nobody voted against the resolution. For more information about the cultural and political

composition of the then UN member states, see Morsink, Johannes.

The Universal Declaration of Human

Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent

(University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1999), p. 21.