The Annual James Muiruri International Law Lecture

International Human Rights Machinery in a Time of Change?

Guest lecture by Professor Malcolm Evans OBE, MA, DPhil(Oxon), Professor of Public International Law, University of Bristol

Malcolm Evans OBE was Head of the School from 2003-2005 and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law at the University of Bristol from 2005-2009. He studied law at Oxford (1979-82; 1983-87), was appointed to a lectureship at Bristol in 1988 and in 1999 was appointed Professor of Public International Law. His areas of research interest now lie primarily in issues concerning the international protection of human rights, with particular focus on the freedom of religion and the prevention of torture, and also the law of the sea.

He is currently Chair of the United Nations Sub Committee for the Prevention of Torture and is a member of the UK Foreign Secretary's Advisory Group on Human Rights. He is also a member of the Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe's Advisory Council of Freedom of Religion and Belief and has worked extensively with numerous international organisations on a broad range of human rights issues. As Deputy Director of the Human Rights Implementation Centre (HRiC) within the School of Law he is involved in a wide variety of its funded research projects, in particular those in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and in Africa.

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Abstract

The current ‘regime’ of international human rights has developed over the last 50 years. Whilst the nature of the international mechanisms for the protection of human rights have remained largely static during this period, their potential has been greatly enhanced over that time by incremental developments in the manner of their operation. However, many of those advances are currently under very real threat as a result of the so-called ‘treaty strengthening’ process which is currently underway. This lecture will set out the background to that process, look at how many of these positive developments are being undermined, and how, as a result, the entire UN human rights treaty system as we know it is under both stress and threat.
There are, however, other possible futures for human rights protection by the international community. In particular, there is an increasing awareness of the significance of utilising national mechanisms for the achievement of human rights compliance as a part of a co-ordinated international strategy. In addition, there is a greater awareness of the need to prevent human rights violations, rather than focusing primarily on seeking to hold those responsible for violations to account. The Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture is an exemplar of an entirely new approach within the UN system which reflections both these approaches and holds out very real prospects for achieving human rights compliance in an entirely different way from that envisaged by the ‘traditional’ human rights instruments. There is, then, a question of whether the future lies in the reform of the processes of the existing mechanisms or in the embracing of a different, though complementary, approach. The background to, work of, and prospects for the ‘OPCAT approach’ will, therefore, be explored.