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Abstract

Major aspects of a state’s human rights policy are developed within the framework of intergovernmental organizations. They offer an opportunity to governments, often in cooperation with other like-minded states, to raise issues of human rights. They also offer an opportunity to call states to account that are guilty of human rights violations.

Parts of this chapter have been published before, in Peter R. Baehr and Leon Gordenker, The United Nations in the 1990s, London: Macmillan, 2nd edn 1994.

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Notes

  1. A major study on the work of the Commission is Howard Tolley Jr., The UN Commission on Human Rights, Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1987.

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  2. See also Philip Alston, ‘The Commission on Human Rights’, in Philip Alston (ed.), The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, pp. 126–210.

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  3. Cf. Jack Donnelly, ‘Human Rights at the United Nations 1955–1985: The Question of Bias’, International Studies Quarterly vol. 32 (1988), pp. 275–303.

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  4. See D. McGoldrick, The Human Rights Committee: Its Role in the Development of the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991

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  5. Torkel Opsahl, ‘The Human Rights Committee’, in Alston, The Commission (note 3 above), pp. 369–443.

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  6. For more details, see Lammy Betten, ‘The International Implementation of Economic and Social Rights by ILO’, Newsletter SIM Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 6, no. 2 (1988), pp. 29–42.

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  7. John Humphrey, No Distant Millenium: The International Law of Human Rights, Paris: UNESCO, 1989, p. 130.

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  8. See Leo Zwaak, ‘The Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms within the Council of Europe’, Newsletter SIM Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 6, no. 2 (1988), pp. 43–68

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  9. Also P. van Dijk and G.J.H. van Hoof, Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights, Deventer: Kluwer, 1990.

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  10. See Leo Zwaak, ‘A Friendly Settlement in the European Inter-State Complaints Against Turkey’, SIM Newsletter, no. 13 (February 1986), pp. 44–8.

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  11. Cf. Dutch Advisory Committee on Human Rights and Foreign Policy, The Mechanism for Supervising Observance of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, The Hague: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1990.

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  12. See Cecilia Medina Quiroga, The Battle of Human Rights: Gross, Systematic Violations and the Inter-American System, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1988

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  13. Cecilia Medina, ‘The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Reflections on a Joint Venture’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 4 (November 1990), pp. 439–64

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  14. Cecilia Medina, ‘The Inter-American System’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 10, no. 2 (1992), pp. 209–22.

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  15. Christina M. Cerna, ‘US Death Penalty Tested Before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 10, no. 2 (1992), pp. 155–65

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  16. More generally see David Forsythe, ‘Human Rights, the United States and the Organization ofAmerican States’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 1 (February 1991), pp. 66–98.

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  17. For the results of interviews with current and former judges of the Court, see Lynda E. Frost, ‘The Evolution of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Reflections of Present and Former Judges’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 2 (May 1992), pp. 171–205.

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  18. Reed Brody and Felipe Gonzalez, ‘Human Rights Development at OAS General Assembly’, ICJ Review, no. 48 (June 1992), pp. 68–72.

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  19. Claude E. Welch Jr., ‘The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights: A Five Year Report and Assessment’, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 1 (February 1992), pp. 44 and 49.

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  20. Cf. Welch, The African Commission (note 18 above), p.55, citing Wolfgang Benedek, ‘The 9th Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights’, Human Rights Law Journal, vol. 12, no. 5 (May 1991), p. 217.

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  21. Cf. Welch, The African Commission (note 18 above), p. 54;Felice D. Gaer, ‘First Fruits: Reporting by States under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 10, no. 1 (1992), pp. 29–42

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  22. Philip Vuciri Ramaga, ‘The Tenth Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights’, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 10, no. 3 (1992), p. 362.

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© 1994 Peter R. Baehr

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Baehr, P.R. (1994). Intergovernmental Organizations. In: The Role of Human Rights in Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23480-6_6

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