Foreword
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights
It can be argued that the global human rights protection system is modernity’s greatest achievement: its single greatest contribution for human well-being.
The successes of the human rights system are as profound as they are under-acknowledged. It has embedded concern for human dignity within the constitutions, law, and practice of so many States. It is a powerful catalyst for social change. Its invocation saves lives every day.
At the heart of the system lie the human rights treaties. The once Chief Justice of India and Chairperson of the (
It is not an overstatement to observe that the treaties afford the human rights system its strength, coherence, authority, and resilience. Furthermore, they are the guarantors of its objectivity, the source of its powerful contention that human rights claims are legal entitlements rather than subjective aspirations. In sum, the treaties are at the ontological heart of the human rights system, or, to borrow the language of the poet, W.B. Yeats, without them, ‘the centre cannot hold, things fall apart.’
I observe the power of the treaties every day. In my current role, for instance, I see that my interventions with states gain traction when they are based entirely on the law. It is on that same basis that they are taken into account by the European Court of Human Rights and other judicial bodies. I observe how the derivation of human rights claims from the treaty obligations elevates them above contentious political discourse and makes them the more compelling for that.
My experience echoes realities observed over decades. Study after study across the globe has shown how the smart invocation of treaty obligations has yielded far more success than is anecdotally imagined. Indeed, to take one specific context, I recall a distinguished commentator sharing with me the conviction that the most powerful reforming force for my own country, Ireland, has been the European Convention on Human Rights.
Of course, the impact of the treaty-based human rights system must not distract us from how far we still have to go to realise the world envisioned in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a world where everyone is free and equal in dignity and rights. Rampant levels of abuse are present across the world, human rights protection systems need to be strengthened, ever-changing social realities must be addressed, new actors engaged. And all this at a time when the very fundamentals of human rights are repudiated or challenged.
The struggle to save the human rights system and to make it more effective calls on a wide range of actors and of disciplines. But, at its heart, if it is to have any success, it must serve to defend and enhance the role of the treaties. That is why I so very much welcome Dr Bertrand Ramcharan’s initiative in assembling the edited volume “The Value of Human Rights Treaties and their Supervisory Bodies.”
This encyclopaedic work surveys the United Nations and the regional treaty systems in a manner that demonstrates the essential role that they play, as well as the extent of the unrealised potential. I particularly welcome the attention paid to the treaty monitoring bodies, including the one of which I was a member, the Human Rights Committee and the other that I once served as secretary, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Notably, the chapters recall the need to continue to promote a process of reform of the United Nations treaty-bodies, despite the glacial pace of progress thus far.
A further welcome feature of the work is the diversity of authors, many of whom have the direct experience of having led or served on treaty monitoring bodies or who have held senior secretariat positions. Dr Ramcharan brings the entire work together in a coherent whole by means of his important introductory and first chapters.
No single volume, even one as wide-ranging as Dr Ramcharan’s, can be exhaustive. I would for instance, have welcomed attention to highly specialised regional human rights treaties, such as those of the Council of Europe and their own treaty monitoring bodies. Also, the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights (albeit not technically a treaty) might have merited a chapter. Furthermore, in support of the centrality of treaties to the entire system, it would have been interesting to see an exploration of the relationship of legally binging instruments and the profusion of soft law principles, codes, and recommendations (including those negotiated by states). Perhaps such issues can be addressed in a future volume. In the meantime, all of us who seek to uphold human rights owe to Dr Ramcharan and his co-authors a deep debt of gratitude.
Michael O’Flaherty
Strasbourg, August 2024