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International human rights instruments are the treaties and other international texts that serve as legal sources for international human rights law and the protection of human rights in general. There are many varying types, but most can be classified into two broad categories: declarations, adopted by bodies such as the United Nations General Assembly, which are by nature declaratory, so not legally-binding although they may be politically authoritative and very well-respected soft law;, and often express guiding principles; and conventions that are multi-party treaties that are designed to become legally binding, usually include prescriptive and very specific language, and usually are concluded by a long procedure that frequently requires ratification by each states' legislature. Lesser known are some "recommendations" which are similar to conventions in being multilaterally agreed, yet cannot be ratified, and serve to set common standards. There may also be administrative guidelines that are agreed multilaterally by states, as well as the statutes of tribunals or other institutions. A specific prescription or principle from any of these various international instruments can, over time, attain the status of customary international law whether it is specifically accepted by a state or not, just because it is well-recognized and followed over a sufficiently long time.
The United Nations Prizes in the Field of Human Rights were instituted by United Nations General Assembly in 1966. They are intended to "honour and commend people and organizations which have made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of the human rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in other United Nations human rights instruments".
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. Described as an international bill of rights for women, it was instituted on 3 September 1981 and has been ratified by 189 states. Over fifty countries that have ratified the convention have done so subject to certain declarations, reservations, and objections, including 38 countries who rejected the enforcement article 29, which addresses means of settlement for disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the convention. Australia's declaration noted the limitations on central government power resulting from its federal constitutional system. The United States and Palau have signed, but not ratified the treaty. The Holy See, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga are not signatories to CEDAW.
The Commission on the Status of Women is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the principal organs of the United Nations. CSW has been described as the UN organ promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Every year, representatives of member states gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide. In April 2017, ECOSOC elected 13 new members to CSW for a four-year term 2018–2022. One of the new members is Saudi Arabia, which has been criticised for its treatment of women.
A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campaigners, participants in direct action, or just individuals acting alone. They can defend rights as part of their jobs or in a voluntary capacity. As a result of their activities, human rights defenders (HRDs) are often subjected to reprisals including smears, surveillance, harassment, false charges, arbitrary detention, restrictions on the right to freedom of association, physical attack, and even murder. In 2020, at least 331 HRDs were murdered in 25 countries. The international community and some national governments have attempted to respond to this violence through various protections, but violence against HRDs continues to rise. Women human rights defenders and environmental human rights defenders face greater repression and risks than human rights defenders working on other issues.
The right to education has been recognized as a human right in a number of international conventions, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which recognizes a right to free, primary education for all, an obligation to develop secondary education accessible to all with the progressive introduction of free secondary education, as well as an obligation to develop equitable access to higher education, ideally by the progressive introduction of free higher education. In 2021, 171 states were parties to the Covenant.
Gender apartheid is the economic and social sexual discrimination against individuals because of their gender or sex. It is a system enforced by using either physical or legal practices to relegate individuals to subordinate positions. Feminist scholar Phyllis Chesler, professor of psychology and women's studies, defines the phenomenon as "practices which condemn girls and women to a separate and subordinate sub-existence and which turn boys and men into the permanent guardians of their female relatives' chastity". Instances of gender apartheid lead not only to the social and economic disempowerment of individuals, but can also result in severe physical harm.
Miriam Estrada Castillo is a lawyer, and was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the daughter of Pablo Estrada Valle, one of the founders of CFP, which was one of the most important political parties of Ecuador in the fifties. She graduated from the American School of Guayaquil with honours and studied Law in the Faculty of Law and Social and Political Sciences of the University of Guayaquil, Ecuador, getting her academic degrees as a Doctor in Jurisprudence and a bachelor's in social and political sciences as a Valedictorian. Her PhD thesis: "Revolution, Art, and Human Rights" was considered a contribution for the legal culture of Ecuador, receiving the honour of being published by the University of Guayaquil. She was awarded, amongst 1200 other graduates, with the "University of Guayaquil" Award, for obtaining the highest scores during her student life and for the contributions she made as an academic. She was married to the founder of the Choral Movement of Ecuador, Maestro Enrique Gil Calderon, with whom she had her three children, Abogado Alfredo Antonio Gil Estrada, Maestro Fernando Gil Estrada and Magister and International Consultant, Alba Gil Estrada.
Discussions of LGBTQI+ rights at the United Nations have included resolutions and joint statements in the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), attention to the expert-led human rights mechanisms, as well as by the UN Agencies.
The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women was adopted without a vote by the United Nations General Assembly in the 48/104 resolution of 20 December 1993. Contained within it is the recognition of "the urgent need for the universal application to women of the rights and principles with regard to equality, security, liberty, integrity and dignity of all human beings". It recalls and embodies the same rights and principles as those enshrined in such instruments as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Articles 1 and 2 provide the most widely used definition of violence against women.
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani female education activist, film and television producer, and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the age of 17. She is the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history, the second Pakistani and the only Pashtun to receive a Nobel Prize. Yousafzai is a human rights advocate for the education of women and children in her native homeland, Swat, where the Pakistani Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Her advocacy has grown into an international movement, and according to former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, she has become Pakistan's "most prominent citizen."
Penelope (Penny) Andrews is a South African and American legal scholar.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of understanding among all races. The Convention also requires its parties to criminalize hate speech and criminalize membership in racist organizations.
KamalaChandrakirana is a feminist human rights activist for justice and democracy from Indonesia. She has been a member of the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women in law and practice since 2011. She spent over a decade founding and serving Indonesia's National Commission on Violence Against Women, the country's primary mechanism for women's human rights. She was first Secretary General from 1998 to 2003, then Chairperson from 2003 to 2009. In 2009, she co-founded Musawah, a "global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family", with other activists, academics and progressive religious scholars.
Rashida Manjoo is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town and a social activist involved in the eradication of violence against women and gender-based violence. Manjoo was the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women from June 2009 to July 2015.
Alda Facio Montejo is a Costa Rican feminist jurist, writer, teacher and international expert in gender and human rights in Latin America. She is one of the founding members of the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice at the International Criminal Court. Since 1991, she has been the Director of Women, Justice and Gender, a program within the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD) and vice president of the Justice and Gender Foundation. She was also one of the founding members of Ventana in the 1970s, one of the first feminist organizations in her native Costa Rica. In 2014, she was chosen to be one of the five United Nations special rapporteurs for the Working Group against Discrimination against Women and Girls. Her term came to and end in 2020 and she was succeeded by Dorothy Estrada-Tanck.
Victor Madrigal-Borloz is a Costa Rican lawyer. Between 2018 and 2023, he served as the United Nations Independent Experton protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity . During his tenure at the U.N., Madrigal-Borloz has been noted for focusing his Human Rights Council mandate on investigating a broad and intersectional range of issues facing LGBT communities around the world, including conversion therapy, criminalization, socio-cultural exclusion, anti-trans rhetoric, and the outsized impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable LGBT and gender-diverse populations.
Claudia M. Flores is a Serbian-born American law Professor at Yale University. She is a member of the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women and girls.
Nayera Kohistani is an Afghan women's rights activist. She lived through the first Taliban rule in her country. She was a protestor when they came to power again. She left the country in 2022 after being imprisoned and she is a prominent protestor against the "gender apartheid" and criminalisation of gender in Afghanistan.
Richard Bennett is a New Zealand human rights expert. He has been the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan since 2022, following the Taliban's return to power.
References
- 1 2 "Dorothy Estrada-Tanck". Harvard Law School | Human Rights Program. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- 1 2 "Dorothy Estrada-Tanck appointed Chair of United Nations Working Group". European University Institute. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ↑ Estrada-Tanck, Dorothy (2016). Human security and human rights under international law : the protections offered to persons confronting structural vulnerability. Hart Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5099-0238-5.
- ↑ "Working Group on discrimination against women and girls". OHCHR. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
- ↑ "Current and former mandate holders". OHCHR. 1 May 2024. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
- ↑ "Experts: Taliban treatment of women may be "gender apartheid"". OHCHR story. July 2023.
- ↑ "States and companies must end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations: UN experts". 20 June 2024. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
- ↑ "Nobel Peace Laureate, Malala Yousafzai, Speaks at IPI on Gender Apartheid". International Peace Institute. 8 March 2024. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
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