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MARTIN FAIX

CYIL 5 ȍ2014Ȏ

of States’ own treaty obligations should be rather enforced through mechanisms

of the

responsibility

of Member States. Also the above mentioned judgment of the

Strasbourg court as well as the Human Rights Committee statement seem merely to

back up this position, instead of insisting on international organisations succeeding

into its Member States human rights obligations. Hence human rights agreements to

which Member States of an international organisation are party cannot be considered

as a source of an organisations’ own obligations.

The most important treaty for international organisations is their constituent

document, which may contain obligations imposed on the organisation by its

Member States.

For example, Article 6 stipulates for the European Union obligations

regarding the respect of fundamental rights. But such obligations may also result from

documents related to the founding treaty. For example, for the European Union

the most important source of human rights obligations, besides the constitutional

treaties, is the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

There also

might be other related documents, such as agreements concerning the privileges and

immunities of the organisation; but those are due to their material scope, generally

rather unlikely to contain obligations in the area of human rights. Much more

problematic and more intensively debated than in the context of the EU was the issue

of human rights commitments resulting from the constituent treaty (and related

documents) with regard to the United Nations. In literature there is a lengthy debate

about whether the UN is bound by human rights under the UN Charter, especially

under the Articles 1(3) and 55(c) UN Charter. Currently the prevailing view seems

to confirm (especially on the basis of

travaux préparatoires

) such an intention of the

UN Charter fathers.

3.2 Human rights obligations under customary international law

A brief answer to the question of whether international organisations have

obligations under customary human rights law would be “yes”. Nevertheless, there

are two issues which in my opinion need to be addressed. The first one is well debated

in international law and concerns the issue of whether (and, if yes, then which)

human rights have gained the status of customary international law. The second

issue is largely settled in the

international

literature,

but arguably not so in

Czech

Such obligations may result from related documents as well, for example from agreements concerning

privileges and immunities of the organisation; but these are generally unlikely to contain obligations in

the area of human rights. Documents produced by Member States and devoted specifically to human

rights protection, such as is the case with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, are truly exceptional.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, O.J. C 83, 30 March 2010, 839. Another

important source is the ECHR. The EU is not a party to ECHR yet, but the convention already became

part of EU law as one of the sources (together with the constitutional traditions common to the member

states) of human rights forming part of general principles on the basis of Article 6 para. 3 TEU.

Cf.

REINISCH, August. Developing human rights and humanitarian law accountability of the Security

Council for the imposition of economic sanctions.

American journal of international law

. 2001, vol. 95,

no. 4, p. 857.

SCHERMERS, Henry G. The Legal Basis of International Organization Action.

Supra

note 74, p. 402.