I Book Review: Thematic Procedures of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and International Law: In Search of a Sense of Community
| Published date | 01 March 2009 |
| Date | 01 March 2009 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934410902700113 |
| Subject Matter | Part D: DocumentationI Book Review |
I Book Reviews
Netherlands Q uarterly of Human R ights, Vol. 27/1 (2009) 119
dierent contributions and on t he actua l meaning and possible developments and
challenges of minorit y rights jurisprudence would have been welcome.
is Commentary, which will be used as a reference book by many grateful scholars
and practitioners, is a milestone in the eld of minority r ights law. Hopef ully, the
development of juri sprudence with rega rd to minority rights wil l continue, mak ing
periodical updates of t his Commentary inevitable.
Jeroen Gutter, e matic Procedures of the United Nations Commiss ion on Human
Rights and Internationa l Law: in Search of a Sense of Community, School of Human
Rights Rese arch Series, Intersentia , Antwerp – Oxford, 2006, xiv + 443 pp., ISBN:
978–90–5095–557–7*
Gutter nalised h is book in February 2006, and most of hi s analysis draws on United
Nations documents that were published before 2005. In March 2006, the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights held its nal meeting, before abolishing itself.
Few months later, the successor of t he Commission, the Human Rights Council, met
for the rst ti me. Does t his development mea n that Gut ter’s book covers a topic of
(recent) legal history?
It cer tainly does not. Gutter’s ana lysis takes place at thre e dierent levels. Not
only does he meticu lously and convincingly picture a selection of the thematic
procedures of the Commission in their origins and gradua l development (level one),
he also ex amines t hese themat ic procedures in the context of a broader question.
at question deals with the relationship, or opposit ion, between human rights and
the international law doctrine of domestic jurisd iction (level two). Again, analysis
at the second level is intended to serve analysis at yet a higher level of abstra ction,
that is whether there has been a c hange in paradigm in international law, whereby
the balance between sovereignty and human r ights has been redrawn. A nalysis at all
three levels draws on an intricate mixture of pol itics and law, international relat ions
and international law.
e nuclear chapters of this book are the chapters three and four, which contain
a fairly e xhaustive d iscussion of three thematic procedures of the United Nations
Commission on Huma n Rights , that is rst a nd foremost the Working Group on
Enforced or Involuntary Disappeara nces, and also the Special Rapporteur on Torture
and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. ese nuclear chapters are preceded
by a general introduction (chapter one) and by an informative chapter on domest ic
jurisdiction and huma n rights in the United Nations (chapter two), and followed by a
substantive concluding chapter (chapter ve).
* Wouter Vandenhole, Faculty of L aw, University of Antwerp, Belgiu m.
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