V-d. Basics of International Relations
To understand national human rights systems and how they work, it is not enough to look inward. One must also understand how nations fit into the larger international human rights system.
From the point of view of the international order, the major units of the international system are states, sometimes called nation-states. State is the formal name for country, or what we sometimes misleadingly describe as nation. It is misleading because the term nation refers to distinct culture groups such as, say, Norwegians or Slovaks or Palestinians. Many states include several nations, and some nations--e.g., Kurds, Hawaiians, Palestinians--have no states.
As indicated in Subsection III-a, on the historical foundations of human rights, the basic normative principles underlying the operation of the international order are (1) sovereignty--there is no global government or other authoritative power over nation states, and (2) non-interference--states may not interfere in one another's internal affairs. Despite frequent violations and frequent exception-making, these guiding principles have been in place since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 concluded the Thirty Years War in Europe.
It is states that become parties to international agreements; they become States Parties to the agreements. States are officially represented by their governments. Governments act in behalf of their states.
States become "States Parties" to international agreements through a systematic, formal process. There are variations, but the common pattern is as follows. Most modern international human rights agreements emerge from negotiations mandated by the United Nations General Assembly. After the negotiations are completed, the proposed agreement is adopted by the General Assembly. It is then open to signature and ratification by the states of the world. The signing of an international agreement by an official representative of a state is an expression of its intention to ratify it. The ratification process entails taking the proposed agreement home to the national legislature, subjecting it to close scrutiny, and then finally ratifying it, and thus establishing the state's solemn commitment to honor the agreement.
Draft agreements normally include provisions saying that they are to come into force upon ratification by a specific number of states. Thus, each international human rights treaty has two dates associated with it, its date of adoption by the United Nations General Assembly, and the date it came into force. To illustrate, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted in 1989 and came into force in 1990 when it received its twentieth ratification. See Table III-2, column 1 for the dates for several important human rights agreements.
Each State Party also has two distinct dates, the date on which it signed and the date on which it ratified the agreement. These dates can be found on the web at http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf
Covenants and treaties are subject to the signature and ratification process, and thus are legally binding on the States Parties. In contrast, declarations and resolutions are not subject to signature and ratification, and are not legally binding. However, there is something called customary law. Under this doctrine, when international agreements are very widely accepted and appear to guide practice almost everywhere, they arguably become binding on all. When that happens is a matter of judgment, and thus it is frequently a matter of dispute.
Since the advent of the modern nation-state system with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, world order has been based on the sovereign nation-state as the key actor. International law is based on the consent of these nation-states, just as government in a democracy is in principle based on the consent of the governed. States adhering to specific international declarations and agreements have considerable latitude in saying how they understand their obligations under those instruments. These interpretations may be expressed in a variety of ways, including reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs) enunciated at the time of accepting them, in the specifics of the national legislation through which they implement their obligations, and in national policy statements of various forms.
Much of the literature on human rights focuses on the role of international bodies, but one should not exaggerate the international character of the human rights system. Certainly one should not suggest that governments adhere to human rights principles mainly because of pressures from the outside. As Richard Falk recognizes:
The statist matrix of political life . . . means that the most substantial contributions to the realization of human rights arise from the internal dynamics of domestic politics. Far more significant than imposing human rights policies from outside is an effective commitment to their protection arising from within the body politic (Falk 1992).
As indicated in the preceding subsection, national legislation and national policy are crucially important for the realization of internationally accepted human rights precisely because forces within countries play such a great role.
Subsection V-d last updated on October 12, 1999