What Are Courts Enforcing Human Rights?

The use of courts is a common method of enforcing human rights. However as we will find out by looking at the evidence and the mechanics of the law, we can see that the courts alone are not the best method of enforcing human rights and that it may in fact be ineffective. Instead this essay will examine how currently there is no set universal method of human rights enforcement and it is instead best to use a method based on the context of the situation.
As we know courts are the main medium for enforcement of international human rights law. States which sign on to the human rights conventions are responsible for enforcing any violations of human rights through their own courts. This is done as each court within the country is in many cases more …show more content…
They say that human rights is most effective when applied universally however as we know due to the diverse nature of humanity a single strict standard on human rights would not work and cultural relativism should be applied when enforcing international laws like this. For crimes that may fall outside the scope of specialty for courts within the states there is the International Criminal Court that was created through the Rome Statute in 1998. This court was created with the purpose of enforcing certain rights where a sovereign state is unwilling to do so themselves. The ICC is also only there to deal with the most serious offences such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their jurisdiction is also limited to countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. The ICC is also purely complementary working with other nation’s individual methods of human rights enforcement. The ICC will primary prosecute cases presented before them by a state prosecutor but they can also take cases referred to them by the Security Council. The court is also capable of overriding a state if they believe that state is refusing to investigate or prosecute a case hence they can be seen as a court that strengthens the enforcement of human rights within the state. …show more content…
This is designed to address issues regarding the individual nature of an international criminal trial as these trials easily overlook the broader implications of human rights abuses on a larger scale. Transitional Justice is the most mainstream alternative to prosecutions and involves society as a whole working to address large scale human rights abuse. The most common form of transitional justice are Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. These are commissions that look to gain peace by exposing atrocities of past governments and individuals. They also prevent historical revisionism such as denial and allow communities to learn from the past and heal. This method has been successful. In Canada a commission was set up to look into the human rights violations of young aboriginal children in the First Nation population and they were able to address their goal of educating the Canadian population of these atrocities as well as to facilitate the healing between the communities. Commissions like this can also be very ineffective, in Cambodia a commission was set up to address human rights violations under Pol Pot’s regime but in 9 years they reached only a single verdict. The commission was also accused of having deep institutional corruption and Cambodians today feel that it has been a failure. Critics of this approach will often cite how this approach is friendly towards human rights violators as this is