International Human Rights
23.02.2011
The Prohibition of Slavery
• 1815: Congress of Vienna, Final Act
• Treaty between United States and Great Britain for the
Suppression of the Slave Trade; April 7,1862
• League of Nations. Convention to Suppress the Slave
Trade and Slavery, September 25, 1926
• United Nations. Protocol Amending the Slavery
Convention Signed at Geneva on 25 September 1926,
December 7, 1953
• United Nations. Supplementary Convention on the
Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions
and Practices Similar to Slavery, September 7, 1956
League of Nations. Convention to Suppress the
Slave Trade and Slavery, September 25, 1926
Article 2
The High Contracting Parties undertake, each in
respect of the territories placed under its
sovereignty, jurisdiction, protection, suzerainty or
tutelage, so far as they have not already taken
the necessary steps:
( a ) To prevent and suppress the slave trade;
( b ) To bring about, progressively and as soon as
possible, the complete abolition of slavery in all
its forms.
International Humanitarian Law
• 1864:Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of
the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the
Field
• Lieber Code
• Institut de Droit International (1880)
• Hague Peace Conference 1899: Convention with
respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land,
with annexed Regulations
• (Hague Peace Conference 1907)
“Geneva Law”
• Convention relative to the Treatment of the Sick and
Wounded on Land (1949, subtituting the 1929 Convention)
• Convention relative to the Treatment of the Sick and
Wounded at Sea (1949)
• Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
(1949, substituting the 1929 Convention)
• Convention relative to the Protection of CivilianPersons in
Time of War (1949)
• Additional Protocol (I) relating to the Protection of Victims
of International Armed Conflict (1967)
• Additional Protocol (II) relating to the Protecition of Victims
of Non-International Armed Conflicts (1967)
Relationship between IHL and IHR
ICJ Advisory Opinion, Wall in Palestine (2004)
As regards i:he relationship between
international humanitarian law and human rights
law, there are thus three possible situations:
some rights may be exclusively matters of
international humanitarian law; others may be
exclusively matters of human rights law; yet
others may be matters of both these branches of
international law. In order to answer the question
put to it, the Court will have to take into
consideration both these branches of
inlernational law, namely human rights law and,
as lex specialis, international humanitarian law.
International Labour Rights
ILO Constitution (1919), Preamble:
“universal and lasting peace can be
established only if it is based upon
social justice”
Minority Rights
Regimi previsti dai trattati di pace
Art. 27 Patto sui diritti civili e politici (1966)
Convenzione quadro per la protezione delle
minoranze nazionali (Consiglio d’Europa,
1995)
Carta europea per le lingue regionali e
minoritarie (Consiglio d’Europa, 1992)
Minority Rights
PCIJ, Advisory Opinion, Minority Schools in Albania
(1935), at 19
“It is perhaps not easy to define the distinction
between the notions of equality in fact and equality in
law; nevertheless it may be said that the former notion
excludes the idea of a merely formal equality (…)
Equality in law precludes discrimination of any kind;
whereas equality in fact may involve the necessity of
different treatment in order to attain a result which
estabilshes an equilibrium between different
situations”