This volume maps out the response of states to human rights violations. It covers the period 1946-1999 and offers a complete and unmatched record for this period. Its starting point is that such responses are not established and accepted state practice. Traditional, if unwritten, norms of states' behaviour developed through centuries of silence and inaction; the prevalent reaction to human rights violations by another state remains the absence of any response. Furthermore, this book probes into evidence of active and passive complicity by reviewing aid to countries in which violations have been taking place and diplomatic initiatives undertaken to shield violators from public opprobrium. Since international law is generated through state practice, the book highlights the ongoing tussle between the pre-1946 heritage of silence and inaction and the 1946-1999 haphazard pattern of responses to violations.

The United Nations peacekeeping has evolved as a practical measure for preserving international peace and security. Recent peacekeeping has two important features: the use of force which arguably exceeds self-defence on the one hand, and multifunctional operations on the other. The Security Council has started considering a wide range of factors including serious human rights violations as threats to international peace and security. Recognising the UN's principle to seek peaceful settlement which underlies the legality of peacekeeping, this research focuses on the human rights functions of multifunctional peacekeeping operations. Such functions have immense potential for enhancing conflict resolution through peaceful means. In order to illustrate these issues and the diverse practice of UN peacekeeping, the author of this book has dealt with four detailed case studies on El Salvador, Cambodia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The achievements, problems and defects experienced by different operations are analysed using the insights of the author's own experience in a peacekeeping operation.

This book uses comparative law and comparative international law approaches to explore the role of human rights ombuds, classic-based ombuds and other types of ombuds institutions in human rights protection and promotion, their methods of application of international and domestic human rights law and their roles in strengthening good governance. It highlights the increasing importance of national human rights ombuds institutions globally and their roles as national human rights institutions (NHRIs). Chapters address: ombuds institutions as mechanisms to strengthen democratic, horizontal and vertical accountability, the rule of law and good governance; national human rights ombuds institutions as NHRIs; the investigatory, litigation, promotional and other powers of human rights and classic-based ombuds and their methods for applying international and domestic human rights law; ombuds institutions and the protection and promotion of international children's rights; national human rights ombuds additional mandates as OPCAT national preventive mechanisms, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Article 33(2) framework mechanisms and EU national equality bodies; human rights ombuds and business and human rights; ombuds institutions, gender and women's rights; the European Ombudsman and human rights; national human rights ombuds and other ombuds models by region, accompanied by case studies on national human rights ombuds; and the legal and extra-legal factors affecting ombuds institutional effectiveness.

The case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on discrimination under the Convention is typically considered to be unclear and conflicting. Against that background, new possibilities for more effective protection against discrimination are opening up through recent developments in the case-law on Article 14 and with the advent of the new Protocol 12 to the Convention. This study demonstrates that the 'objective and reasonable justification' test and convenional treatment of non-discrimination are not apt for dealing with these emerging new possibilities or for explaining the variations in existing case-law. It therefore suggests a new approach to dealing with protection against discrimination under the Convention, developed by focusing on variations in the strictness of objective justification review. This study proposes a more viable framework for understanding discrimination analysis under the Convention which includes an alternative interpretation of the burden of proof under Article 14 and a three-tiered model of factors that influences the strictness of review.

4. Right to Peace.

Following the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the events of 11 September 2001, awareness of international crimes has come to the forefront of public consciousness. The very public responses seen in the establishment by the Security Council of the ad hoc tribunals and the international community coming together to create the International Criminal Court have done much to promote the idea that there should be no impunity for international criminals. Nevertheless, while those are incredibly significant steps in the attempt to combat international crime, there is no way due to their jurisdictional competence that such bodies could ever hope to address all the various crimes that are committed that are not confined to a single domestic jurisdiction either by reason of their nature or trans-border factors. As such, the response of the international community to international crime depends as much on extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction, mutual legal assistance agreements, extradition and other means of lawful rendition. Furthermore, given the fundamental rule that a person is innocent until proven guilty and that everyone within the jurisdiction of a State is owed certain basic minimum human rights guarantees, responses to international crime cannot be without limitation. Respect for the alleged transnational fugitive offender is as important a factor in responding to international crime as preventing impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and gross human rights violations.

Human Rights between Idealism and Realism presents human rights in action, focusing on their effectiveness as legal tools designed to benefit human beings. By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, this volume provides a multidimensional overview of human rights. After examining briefly the history of human rights, the author analyses the intellectual framework that forms the basis of their legitimacy. In particular, he covers the concept of universality and the widely used model that classifies human rights into clusters of different 'generations'. The volume then moves on to analyse of the activities of the political institutions of the United Nations, the expert bodies established by the relevant treaties, and the international tribunals specifically entrusted at the regional level with protecting human rights. The author explains how and why ithe classical array of politically inspired informal devices has been enriched by the addition of international criminal procedures and by endeavours to introduce civil suits against alleged individual violators of human rights. Finally, the volume is rounded off by a consideration of the importance of humanitarian law as an instrument for the protection of human life and dignity and an exploration of the future of human rights.