Looking back half a century reveals a clear development in the history of international human rights law, from a fledgling system of rights protection with little positive law to the complex interwoven international human rights law regime we see today. December 2016 marked 50 years since the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the two major international human rights instruments, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Their creation crystallised the trinity of international documents now referred to as the international bill of rights.Footnote1 The Covenants are two separate documents, with two different sets of norms and specialist supervisory committees; yet, one of the underlying precepts of international human rights law is that all rights are not just universal but also indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.Footnote2
The 50 years that followed the adoption of the Covenants showed the unfolding of innumerable challenges, both institutional and substantive, to the protection of human rights at the international level. Increasing interaction between previously distinct systems and norms has also changed the nature of human rights law. These developments, with the timely anniversary of the adoption of the Covenants, led the human rights pillar of the INTRAlaw (INternational and TRAnsnational tendencies in law) research centre at Aarhus University to organise a colloquium on the theme of ‘Interaction between human rights: 50 years of the Covenants’. In September 2016, the colloquium brought together scholars and practitioners working on the interaction between human rights at the international, regional and domestic levels. The keynote speeches and panel papers addressed the rights protected under the two UN Covenants and the work of their Committees, interpreting and driving the implementation of the respective instruments.
The colloquium was not only an academic celebration of the anniversary of the Covenants, but also an opportunity to interrogate legal and practical challenges to the law and human rights systems. Throughout the two days of the colloquium many thought-provoking papers were presented, sparking debate and discussion both in plenary and panel sessions, and raising innovative responses to some of the most dominant challenges to human rights protection. In substantive terms, the focus of discussions was on different dimensions of interaction between human rights: the interrelationship between various types of rights, in particular the indivisibility of civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights; the interaction between complex issues pertaining to the universality of human rights; the institutional interaction between the interpretation, application and enforcement of human rights instruments at the international, regional and domestic level. The latter aspect raised the central question of the relationship between legal regimes, particularly the principle of subsidiarity, that is becoming ever more controversial not only in the context of the UN monitoring bodies, but also regionally in Europe, relating to the two somewhat overlapping and potentially competing regimes for the protection of human rights and the interaction between the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union.
We are pleased to have the opportunity to share some of these contributions with the broader human rights community through this Special Issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights. This Special Issue does not cover all dimensions of interaction that were discussed at the colloquium. The selected articles do, however, address some of the most important, controversial and topical human rights issues at this current point in history: the impact of business activities on the protection of human rights and the ensuing interaction between human rights law and the norms on corporate social responsibility (Chiara Macchi); the applicability of human rights norms in armed conflict and the interaction between human rights law and international humanitarian law (Vito Todeschini); the complexities of the approach to intersectional discrimination under human rights treaties (Shreya Atrey); and the interaction between the two European human rights regimes as illustrated by the controversy over EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (Eduardo Gill-Pedro and Xavier Groussot).
The first article (Lauren Neumann and Tara Van Ho) serves a dual purpose. It further introduces the theme of this Special Issue by elaborating on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its relationship with other UN human rights procedures and with civil society; the legal, political and practical challenges to the work of the treaty bodies; and the current discussions and proposals for reform of the treaty bodies' activities. This article reflects on the keynote address given by Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, who sadly passed away just a few months after the colloquium. The article is therefore also meant to honour Sir Nigel's enormous contribution to the protection and promotion of human rights for a period that predates even the entry into force of the Covenants in 1976.
The anniversary of the Covenants is a reminder that 50 years is both a short period in the development of law and society yet long for those who suffer from deficiencies in the protection accorded by international human rights regimes. The Colloquium and the Special Issue come at a time when international human rights law seems particularly insecure, with attacks against the universality and justiciability of human rights seemingly coming from every corner, including from states that were once seen as the bulwark of human rights. The subsequent articles in this Special Issue consider both where we are and where we are going, an appropriate reflection on a fiftieth anniversary worth celebrating.
Notes
1 The third document of course being the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
2 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, UN Doc A/CONF157/23 (1993).