Abstract
Human rights treaties have fundamentally altered the face of international law. As opposed to the simple exchange of obligations amongst sovereign States, human rights treaties establish an objective regime whereby States Parties institute internationally accepted individual protections and minimum standards as mandated by their roles as duty bearers, as opposed to rights bearers within the global human rights community. Through treaty accession, States Parties set a system of rights protection in motion whereby they surrender a small fraction of State sovereignty in exchange for a functional role within a broader system that obliges them to respect, protect, and fulfil the interests of the populations they represent.1 Treaty ratification thus entails international accountability that takes the form of either individual complaint procedures or monitoring through regular and systematic State reporting duties. Theoretically, an international Court of Human Rights, or a system of ombudspersons, or human rights commissions, or national human rights commissioners, empowered with effective remedies and mandated to monitor and protect the rights of all individuals, groups or peoples, would substantively address the issue of accountability under international human rights treaty law.
Born 1943; 1963–1967 Studies of Law and Theology, King’s College London; 1967–1971 Studies of Law, Kiel; 1974 Dr. iur.; 1983 Post-doctoral examination (Habilitation); 1983–1986 Professor of Public and International Law, Mainz; 1986–1993 Chair of Public and International Law and Director of Department ofInternational Law, Marburg; since 1993 Chair of German and Comperative Public Law, European and International Law, Mannheim; Adjunct Professor University of Adelaide/Australia; since 1997 Member of the German UNESCO Commission and of the UN-Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Geneva.
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Zusammenfassung
For a lucid analysis, reflecting the development of human rights philosophy in the twentieth century, see the important study by P. Opitz, Die Entwicklung des Internationalen Menschenrechtsschutzes im 20. Jahrhundert, München 2001; see also E. Riedel, Universeller Menschenrechtsschutz. Vom Anspruch zur Durchsetzung, in: G. Baum, E. Riedel, M. Schaefer (eds.), Menschenrechtsschutz in der Praxis der Vereinten Nationen, Baden-Baden 2001, pp. 25–55, at 25.
Cf. Ph. Alston, The Historical Origins of the Concept of ‘General Comments’ in Human Rights Law, in: Liber Amicorum Georges Abi-Saab, The Hague 2001, pp. 763–776.
Cf. M.C.R. Craven, The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Oxford et al. 1995, p. 106 et seq.; B. Toebes, The Right to Health as a Human Right in International Law, Antwerpen 1999, p. 312 et seq.; Ph. Alston, The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in: same (ed.), The United Nations and Human Rights. A Critical Appraisal, Oxford 1992, pp. 473–508; B. Simma, The Examination of State Reports, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in: E. Klein (ed.), The Monitoring System of Human Rights Treaty Obligations, Berlin 1998, pp. 31–48, at 31 et seq.
E. Riedel, The Examination of State Reports, in: E. Klein (note 3), p. 95 et seq.
S. Leckie, Another Step Towards Indivisibility, Identifying the Key Features of Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 20, 1998, pp. 81–108, at 94.
R.E. Robertson, Measuring State Compliance with the Obligation to Devote the “Maximum Available Resources” for Realizing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 16, 1994, pp. 693–714, at 694.
P. Hunt, State Obligations, Indicators, Benchmarks, and the Right to Education, in: Human Rights Law and Practice, vol. 4, No. 2, 1998, pp. 109–115, at 115.
As regards the violations approach, see A.R. Chapman, A Violations Approach for Monitoring the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 18, 1996, pp. 23–66.
See M. Green, What We Talk About When We Talk About Indicators: Current Approaches to Human Rights Measurement, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 23, 2001, pp. 1063–1097; see also K. Raworth, Measuring Human Rights, Ethics and International Affairs 2001, vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 111–131; E. Riedel, Theorie der Menschenrechtsstandards, Berlin 1986, p. 198 et seq.
M. Green (note 9), p. 1076, citing C.W. Cobb and C. Rixford, Lessons Learned from the History of Social Indicators, Redefining Progress, San Francisco 1998, cf. www.rprogress.org/pubs/pdf/SocIndHist.pdf.
K. Raworth (note 9), p. 111.
Cf. D. Schwefel, Grundbedürfnisse und Entwicklungspolitik, Baden-Baden 1978; D. Schwefel, Indikatoren der Sozialen Gerechtigkeit. Beiträge zur Sozialplanung in den Entwicklungsliindem, Berlin 1972, p. 32; and WHO, Catalogue of Health Indicators, Geneva 1996, WHO/HST/SCII96.8, p. viii.
K. Raworth, Using Indicators for Human Rights Accountability, UNDP Human Development Report, Oxford et al. 2000, 89, at 90; see also T.B. Jabine and R.P. Claude, Human Rights and Statistics: Getting the Record Straight, Philadelphia 1992; see also C.B. Cobb and C. Rixford (note 10).
M. Green (note 9), p. 1065.
M. Green (note 9), citing I. Kapoor, Indicators for Human Rights and Democratic Development: a Preliminary Study, Canadian International Development Agency, Toronto 1995, p. 3. In particular, human rights indicators are used to assess whether the principle of non-discrimination has been fulfilled.
L. Bolivar, E. Gonzales, Monitoring and Assessing the Enjoyment of ESC Rights, in: J. Ravindran, A. Blyberg (eds.), Circle of Rights, International Human Rights Internship Program, Washington/D.C., Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Bangkok 2000, pp. 365–391, at 372, maintain that only result and process indicators ought to be distinguished. But this categorization is not compelling.
Cf. L. Bolivar, E. Gonzales A. Blyberg (eds.), Circle of Rights, International Human Rights Internship Program, Washington/D.C., Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Bangkok 2000 (note 16), p. 373.
L. Bolivar, E. Gonzales A. Blyberg (eds.), Circle of Rights, International Human Rights Internship Program, Washington/D.C., Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Bangkok 2000 (note 16), p. 373.
WHO studies casually utilize result indicators that examine either health status or death, which are utilized in conjunction with process indicators, covering such issues as health care delivery, management, and determinants, see (note 12), p. vii.
For example the reproductive health and mental health departments, cf. WHO, Reproductive Health Indicators for Global Monitoring. Report of the Second Interagency Meeting, Geneva, 2001, WHO/RHR/o1.19; see also WHO, Advancing Safe Motherhood Through Human Rights, 2001, RHR/o1.5, p. 62 et seq.; and generally WHO, The World Health Report 2001, Mental Health: New Understanding, New Hope, 2001, p. 130 et seq.
M. Duchstein, seminar paper, (in German), concerning right to health indicators, Heidelberg et al. 1999, on file with the author.
Committee examinations proceeded under the assumption that, due to its decreased cost, preventive care is preferable to curative care. Further, cost and efficiency considerations received prominent attention, see P. Hunt, Reclaiming Social Rights, Dartmouth 1996, p. 133; A. Chapman, The Minimum Core Content of the Right to Health, comments presented to CESCR members, 2000, on file with the author.
P. Hunt (note 28), p. 131, and B. Toebes, Towards an Improved Understanding of the International Human Right to Health, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 21, 1999, pp. 661–680, at 678.
See UN Doc. E/C.12/1994/9, 31 May 1994, no. 16.
See General Comment No. 14 (Right to the highest attainable standard of health), UN Doc. E/C.12/2000/4, 11 August 2000, paragraphs 36–37, 55–56 and 57–58.
See S. Fukuda-Parr, Human Development Indicators and Analytic Tools as Benchmarks in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Round Table on Benchmarks for the Realization of ESC Rights, Geneva 25 March 1998, cited in M. Green (note 9), What We Talk About When We Talk About Indicators: Current Approaches to Human Rights Measurement, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 23, 2001 p. 1081.
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Riedel, E. (2003). New Bearings to the State Reporting Procedure: Practical Ways to Operationalize Economic, Social and Cultural Rights — the Example of the Right to Health —. In: von Schorlemer, S. (eds) Praxishandbuch UNO. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55674-6_18
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