The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted without dissent by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The catalogue of rights set out in it is scarcely less than the sum of most of the important traditional political and civil rights of national constitutions and legal systems, including equality before the law; protection against arbitrary arrest; the right to a fair trial; freedom from ex post facto criminal laws; the right to own property; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; freedom of opinion and expression; and freedom of peaceful assembly and association. Also enumerated are such economic, social, and cultural rights as the right to work, the right to form and join trade unions, the right to rest and leisure, the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, and the right to education.

The UDHR, it should be noted, is not a treaty. It was meant to proclaim “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations” rather than enforceable legal obligations. Nevertheless, a number of its provisions have acquired a status juridically more important than originally intended, a reflection of its wide use, even by national courts, as a means of judging compliance with human rights obligations under the UN Charter. It is also one of the instruments constituting the International Bill of Human Rights.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was opened for signature on December 16, 1966, and entered into force on January 3, 1976. Also part of the International Bill of Human Rights, it elaborates upon most of the economic, social, and cultural rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including, among others, the right to work, the right to form and join trade unions, the right to health, and the right to education. Unlike its companion agreement, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, however, generally this covenant, sometimes called a “promotional convention,” was not intended for immediate implementation, the state parties having agreed only “to take steps” toward “achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the…Covenant,” and then subject to “the maximum of [their] available resources.” One obligation, however, was subject to immediate application: the prohibition of discrimination in the enjoyment of the rights enumerated on grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, and birth or other status. Also, the international supervisory measures that apply to the ICESCR oblige the state parties to report to the UN Economic and Social Council on the steps they have adopted and on the progress they have made in achieving the realization of the enumerated rights. In 2008 the adoption of an Optional Protocol led to the creation of an individual-complaints mechanism for the ICESCR—the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—which was comparable to the Human Rights Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights..

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Its Optional Protocols

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), likewise a part of the International Bill of Human Rights, was opened for signature on December 19, 1966, and entered into force on March 23, 1976. Just as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights elaborates upon most of the economic social, and cultural rights enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so the ICCPR elaborates upon most of the civil and political rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to nondiscrimination but excluding the right to own property and the right to asylum. The covenant also designates several rights not listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among them the right of all peoples to self-determination and the right of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, and to use their own language. To the extent that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the covenant overlap, however, the latter is understood to explicate and help interpret the former.

In addition, the covenant calls for the establishment of a Human Rights Committee, comprising persons serving in their individual expert capacities, to study reports submitted by the state parties on measures they have adopted to give effect to the rights recognized in the covenant. For state parties that have expressly recognized the competence of the committee in this regard, the committee also may respond to allegations by one state party that another state party is not fulfilling its obligations under the covenant. If the committee is unable to resolve the problem, the matter is referred to an ad hoc conciliation commission, which eventually reports its findings on all questions of fact, plus its views on the possibilities of an amicable solution. State parties that become party to the covenant’s First Optional Protocol further recognize the competence of the Human Rights Committee to consider and act upon communications from individuals claiming to be victims of covenant violations, provided that the respondent state has recognized the competence of the committee in this regard and that domestic remedies have been exhausted—emulating the legal standing given to individuals before the UN Commission on Human Rights after 1967.

Other treaty-based organs within the UN system that are similarly empowered to consider grievances from individuals in a quasi-judicial manner are the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee on Torture, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Committee on Enforced Disappearances. Additionally, the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child contain provisions for individual complaints that are not yet operational.

The Second Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is aimed at abolishing the death penalty worldwide, was adopted in 1989 and entered into force in 1991. The protocol has been favourably received in most of the countries of western Europe and in many countries in the Americas, though not in the United States.

Other UN human rights conventions and declarations

Numerous other human rights treaties drafted under UN auspices address a broad range of concerns. Supplementing the ICCPR and ICESCR considered above, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights lists several other “core international human rights instruments,” including the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the 2002 Optional Protocol of the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The OHCHR also details a non-exhaustive list of “other universal instruments relating to human rights” (although including the core instruments just noted). The list is nonetheless long and diverse and embraces declarations, principles, guidelines, standard rules, and recommendations which, according to the OHCHR, “have no binding legal effect,” as well as covenants, statutes, protocols, and conventions that, it asserts, “are legally-binding.” The wide scope of topical categories includes the right of self-determination, the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities, social welfare, and humanitarian law (i.e., the humanitarian rules of armed conflict).

Thus, across a wide range of issues and themes and in addition to overseeing human rights treaties deemed legally binding in theory, the UN has adopted human rights instruments that are presumptively not legally binding, as is, in contrast, a treaty or a resolution of the Security Council. Such instruments—particularly when they enunciate principles of great and solemn importance—may nevertheless create strong expectations about authority and control. Perhaps the best-known examples subsequent to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960) and the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (1970) which affirms, among other things, “the duty of all states to refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in…terrorist acts.”