6
The international protection of human rights
The nature of human rights
1
The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on
10 December 1948 emphasises that ‘recognition of the inherent dignity
and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human fam-
ily is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. While
there is widespread acceptance of the importance of human rights in the
international structure, there is considerable confusion as to their precise
nature and role in international law.
2
The question of what is meant by a
‘right’ is itself controversial and the subject of intense jurisprudential de-
bate.
3
Some ‘rights’, for example, are intended as immediately enforceable
1
See e.g. H. Lauterpacht,
International Law and Human Rights
, London, 1950; D. Weissbrodt,
J. Fitzpatrick and F. Newman,
International Human Rights
, 3rd edn, Cincinnati, 2001; J.
Rehman,
International Human Rights Law
, London, 2002; Nguyen Quoc Dinh, P. Daillier
and A. Pellet,
Droit International Public
, 7th edn, Paris, 2002, p. 656; F. Sudre,
Droit In-
ternational et Europ´een des Droits de l’Homme
, 3rd edn, Paris, 1997; M. S. McDougal, H.
Lasswell and L. C. Chen,
Human Rights and World Public Order
, New Haven, 1980; L. Sohn
and T. Buergenthal,
International Protection of Human Rights
, Indianapolis, 1973;
Human
Rights in International Law
(ed. T. Meron), Oxford, 2 vols., 1984; A. H. Robertson and J.
Merrills,
Human Rights in the World
, 4th edn, Manchester, 1996; A. Cassese,
International
Law
, 2nd edn, Oxford, 2005, chapter 19;
Guide to International Human Rights Practice
(ed.
H. Hannum), 4th edn, Ardsley, 2004; J. Donnelly,
International Human Rights
, Boulder,
1993; D. R. Forsythe,
Human Rights in International Relations
, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 2006;
R. Higgins,
Problems and Process
, Oxford, 1994, chapter 6;
Human Rights: An Agenda for
the Next Century
(eds. L. Henkin and L. Hargrove), Washington, 1994; T. Meron,
The Hu-
manization of International Law
, The Hague, 2006; C. Tomuschat,
Human Rights
, Oxford,
2003; R. K. M. Smith,
Text and Materials on International Human Rights
, London, 2007,
and H. Steiner, P. Alston and R. Goodman,
International Human Rights in Context
, 3rd edn,
Oxford, 2008.
2
See e.g. M. Moskowitz,
The Policies and Dynamics of Human Rights
, London, 1968,
pp. 98–9, and McDougal
et al.
,
Human Rights
, pp. 63–8.
3
See e.g. W. N. Hohfeld, ‘Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied to Judicial Reasoning’,
23
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