Hey guys so I have a really lazy legal teacher who pretty much gives no feedback on our work, so could someone read through these human rights short answers and help me improve them. Thankyou!
• Explain the role of IGOs, other than the UN, in promoting and enforcing human rights.
An intergovernmental organisation is an institution made up of member states, which has an international treaty that acts as a charter, outlining the organisation’s purpose. Apart from the UN, a number of IGOs have the promotion of human rights as part of their stated goals and can exert significant influence on the human rights situations of their member states, although the influence of every organisation differs. For example, the Commonwealth of Nations is made up of almost all former colonies of the British Empire. The aims of the Commonwealth is the promotion of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, individual liberty and good governance. Several members have been suspended due to serious or persistent violations and human rights abuses, including Zimbabwe in 2002. The African Union is another example of an IGO, which includes almost all African states. The aim of the African Union is to bring about security and peace in Africa and promote good governance and human rights. Hence, while all IGOs have different aims and focuses, a number of them have human rights as one of their primary areas of concerns and their role in promoting such rights evolves around cooperation between states.
• Explain the role of the UN in promoting and enforcing human rights
The UN is a vast organisation with substantial power, consisting of 193 member states and has responsibility for almost every aspect of international affairs. It is the avenue through which much of the world’s international development assistance and the majority of international cooperation takes place. Different organs of the UN play different roles in promoting and enforcing human rights. The UN’s principal human rights body is the UN Human Rights Council, which is an intergovernmental body under the UN General Assembly (GA). It aims at addressing human rights violations worldwide and make recommendations to the GA, which is the main forum for international discussions and declarations. Some of the measures adopted by the UN Human Rights Council include a complaints procedure, allowing individual people to bring issues to the council’s attention and a compulsory periodic review of the human rights situation in all member states. This report plays an important role in exposing human rights abusers and hence promoting compliance. The UN Human Rights Council also works with the GA and the Security Council that can use this information as well as their power to perform legally binding resolutions to enforce human rights. Another organ of the UN is the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which is under the UN Secretariat. The main purpose of the OHCHR is to promote human rights by advancing universal ratification and implementation of the UDHR and human rights standards and treaties.
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