I Book Review: The International Protection of Internally Displaced Persons
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/016934410602400114 |
| Subject Matter | Part D: DocumentationI Book Review |
the treaty bodies, substantive provisions of the treaties, case-law of the treaty bodies,
overlap with non-treaty mechanisms and possible overlap with regional human
rights mechanisms, etc.). One of criteria may be the time taken by a treaty body to
take a decision. In the chapter, one can read that the Human Rights Committee
(ICCPR) has the longest delay: decisions on admissibility may take about 2 years and
final views on the merits may take four years from registration to conclusion, on the
other hand, decisions combining admissibility issues and merits can sometimes be
dealt with in about two years. The Committee Against Torture (CAT) has no
backlog. Consequently, decisions are normally taken in less than two years.
The final chapter of the book is dedicated to the follow-up mechanisms existing
under the above-mentioned treaties.
The second part of Bayefsky’s book, contains 22 Annexes on different subjects,
ranging from the complaint forms and contact information of the different
committees, a checklist for submitting complaints, to the rules of procedure of the
monitoring bodies and various indexes of cases (per treaty, by article or by State
Party). This part of the manual may prove to be a very useful if not decisive tool when
effectively putting the theory into practice.
As a conclusion, I fully agree with former judge in the International Court of
Justice Stephen Schwebel’s comment that ‘the non-governmental organisations (...)
and the human rights lawyers (...) will welcome Bayefsky’s manual, use it, and find it
a valuable tool in their invaluable cause’. I would even say more: given its concise but
highly pedagogical style, the book is not only a valuable guide for human rights
activists, non-governmental organisations wanting to bring cases before the UN
treaty-based organs or human rights lawyers, but also for graduate students who are
just about to get to know the possibilities offered by the UN human rights system.
While academics with a thorough knowledge of the UN treaty-based system may be
left a bit on their hunger when searching the manual for standpoints from the
author on contested issues and concrete references to cases (to make the book user-
friendly, the author has also omitted footnotes), they will still find the book a very
useful tool when preparing a lecture. So perhaps a minor suggestion from – an
otherwise thoroughly satisfied – commentator to the author: while updating the
annexes for the next edition, perhaps the author might consider to add another
modest annex with a small number of good books or manuals (if available) dealing
with concrete cases under the different UN monitoring bodies. This way, the
interested applicant, reader and academic wishing to further and deepen his or her
knowledge on the different treaty bodies and their case-law, will know where to look.
Catherine Phuong,
The International Protection of Internally Displaced
Persons
, Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law, Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, 293 p., ISBN: 0 521 82686
(hardback)*
This book analyses how internally displaced persons may be or should be protected
by international law and international organisations. Quite logically, the author
starts by an attempt to define internally displaced people. There are some
similarities between refugees and internally displaced persons, as it seems that the
I Book Reviews
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 24/1 (2006) 169
* Aleidus Woltjer, Lecturer, Institute for Administrative and Constitutional Law, Utrecht University,
the Netherlands.
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