prospects of the High Commissioner proposal with careful scholarship and shrewd judgment. Mr. Clark wrote the first draft of this book under my supervision for the degree of Doctor of the Science of Law at Columbia Law School before returning to take up his career as a law teacher in his native New Zealand. I am delighted that his work, in this improved and updated version, is now being published. It fills a real need, since it is the first book on this important subject. On this occasion it might be appropriate to add a few comments on the history of the High Commissioner proposal. As Mr. Clark indicates, I had something to do with its "revival" in the United States Government during the closing months of the Kennedy Administration. A few details as to how this "revival" took place may perhaps be useful to students of international relations and international organization.

In this book, John P. Pace provides the most complete account to-date of the United Nations human rights programme, both in substance and in chronological breadth. Pace worked at the heart of this programme for over thirty years, including as the Secretary of the Commission on Human Rights, and Coordinator of the World Conference on Human Rights, which took place in Vienna in 1993. He traces the issues taken up by the Commission after its launch in 1946, and the methods undertaken to enhance absorption and domestication of international human rights standards. He lays out the special procedures carried out by the UN, and the emergence of international human rights law. The book then turns to the establishment of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the mainstreaming of human rights across the United Nations system, eventually leading to the establishment of the Human Rights Council to replace the Commission in 2006. Many of the problems we face today, including conflict, poverty, and environmental issues, have their roots in human rights problems. This book identifies what has been done at the international level in the past, and points towards what still needs to be done for the future.

This book is designed to provide a framework for understanding contemporary United Nations (UN) human rights machinery.

The fully revised and updated second edition not only provides a complete guide to the development, structure and procedures within the UN human rights system, but also this reflects the vital changes that have occurred within the UN system.

The very concept of human rights implies governmental accountability. To ensure that governments are indeed held accountable for their treatment of citizens and others the United Nations has established a wide range of mechanisms to monitor compliance, and to seek to prevent as well as respond to violations. The panoply of implementation measures that the UN has taken since 1945 has resulted in a diverse and complex set of institutional arrangements, the effectiveness of which varies widely. Indeed, there is much doubt as to the effectiveness of much of the UN's human rights efforts but also about what direction it should take. Inevitable instances of politicization and the hostile, or at best ambivalent, attitude of most governments, has at times endangered the fragile progress made on the more technical fronts. At the same time, technical efforts cannot dispense with the complex politics of actualizing the promise of human rights at and through the UN. In addition to significant actual and potential problems of duplication, overlapping and inconsistent approaches, there are major problems of under-funding and insufficient expertise. The complexity of these arrangements and the difficulty in evaluating their impact makes a comprehensive guide of the type provided here all the more indispensable. These essays critically examine the functions, procedures, and performance of each of the major UN organs dealing with human rights, including the Security Council and the International Court of Justice as well as the more specialized bodies monitoring the implementation of human rights treaties. Significant attention is devoted to the considerable efforts at reforming the UN's human rights machinery, as illustrated most notably by the creation of the Human Rights Council to replace the Commission on Human Rights. The book also looks at the relationship between the various bodies and the potential for major reforms and restructuring.

This book constitutes the first comprehensive study of the United Nations Special Procedures, covering their history, methods of work, institutional status, relationship with other politically driven organs, and processes affecting their development. Using concrete examples, the book shows how cooperation between states, rather than legalistic processes, have had beneficial impacts on the protection and promotion of human rights.

This book provides an interdisciplinary overview of international human rights issues, offering truly international coverage including the Global South. Considering the philosophical foundations of human rights, Chen and Renteln explore the interpretive difficulties associated with identifying what constitute human rights abuses, and evaluate various perspectives on human rights. This book goes on to analyze institutions that strive to promote and enforce human rights standards, including the United Nations system, regional human rights bodies, and domestic courts. It also discusses a wide variety of substantive human rights including genocide, torture, capital punishment, and other cruel and unusual punishments. In particular, the book offers an accessible introduction to key understudied topics within human rights, such as socioeconomic rights, cultural rights, and environmental rights. It also focuses on the rights of marginalized groups, including children's rights, rights of persons with disabilities, women's rights, labor rights, indigenous rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, making this an engaging and invaluable resource for the contemporary student.

This collection of chapters tracks and explains the impact of the nine core United Nations human rights treaties in 20 selected countries, four from each of the five UN regions. Researchers based in each of these countries were responsible for the chapters, in which they assess the influence of the treaties and treaty body recommendations on legislation, policies, court decisions and practices. By covering the 20 years between July 1999 and June 2019, this book updates a study done 20 years ago.

The accountability of armed non-state actors is a neglected field of international law, overtaken by the regimes of state responsibility and individual criminal accountability as well as fears of legitimacy. Yet armed non-state actors are important players in the international arena and their activities have significant repercussions. This book focuses on their obligations and accountability when they do not function as state agents, regardless of the existence or extent of accountability of their individual members. The author claims that their distinct features lead to their classification into three different types: de facto entities, armed non-state actors in control of territory, and common article 3 armed non-state actors. The mechanisms that trigger the applicability of humanitarian and human rights law regimes are examined in detail as well as the framework of obligations. In both cases, the author argues that armed non-state actors should not be treated as entering international law and process exclusively through the state. The study concludes by focussing on their accountability in international humanitarian and human rights law and, more specifically, to the rules of attribution, remedies and reparations for violations of their primary obligations.

This work addresses the question: how has the evolution of a legal regime within the United Nations and regional organisations influenced state behaviour regarding recognition of minority groups? The author assesses the implications of this regime for political theorists’ account of multiculturalism. This research bridges a gap between normative questions in political theory on multiculturalism and the international law on minorities. It does so by means of case studies of legal challenges involving two groups, namely, the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, and the Roma peoples in Europe. The author concludes by discussing the normative implications of the minority regime for helping to resolve conflicts that arise out of state treatment of minority groups.