REVIEWS
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1980.tb01591.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1980 |
| Date | 01 March 1980 |
REVIEWS
THE
NEW
POLITICS
OF
HUMAN
RIGHTS.
By
JAMES
AVERY
JOYCE.
[London:
Macmillan
Press
Ltd.
1978.
305
pp.
(incl.
index).
€1
2.00.1
THIS
book does not claim to be for lawyers although it covers a number of
legal issues. But it
is
written by
a
lawyer with unrivalled experience in the
development of international human rights law and it is
a
tribute to his
humanity and
skill
as
a
teacher that he makes readable and even moving the
often pedantic and abstract debates which mark the effort to make rules out
of the elusive concept of human rights. It is no doubt his wish to inject
the idea of lively controversy that has led him to emphasise politics in the
title, and it is true that the development of a framework for the international
protection of human rights
is
inextricably bound
up
with politics. Yet the book
demonstrates what remarkable progress has been made since 1945 in over-
coming political interests, which for every nation must favour the preservation
of
its activities from outside scrutiny. The
“
International Bill of Rights,”
combining the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on
Economic and Social Rights is in force, and the committee of experts which
has jurisdiction under the former to investigate both inter-State and individual
complaints is in being (though ratifications have been shamefully few especially
of
the Optional Protocol allowing individual complaints). On
a
more managc-
able regional level, the European Convention
on
Human Rights
is
more
sophisticated and more effective. Unlike the Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights it incorporates measures to sccure compliance.
Of course, the adherence
of
many governments to international human rights
norms and their deference to supra-national authority is hypocritical. Chile,
for example, is a signatory
of
the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights yet
it refused entry to the Ad Hoc Working Group appointed under the Covenant
to
investigate allegations of
gross
violations. Likewise the patent insincerity
with which in
1977
the rulers of the U.S.S.R. promulgated a new constitution
guaranteeing its citizens “freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly,
meetings, street processions and demonstrations
”
encourages cynicism. What
use is lip-service paid by governments who fear no sanctions
or
believe they
can avert them by token gestures?
Yet the need which is felt by nearly all governments to pay lip-service to
human rights is itself a target at which pressure can be directed. Again Chile
provides an illustration. After initial refusals
the
Ad Hoc Working Group was
admitted and given the facilities it requested. Its condemnation of torture
and murder, together with reports to similar effect from Amnesty International
and the International Commission of Jurists, and economic and diplomatic
sanctions (including the withdrawal of the British ambassador), and world wide
press criticism fed by all these, have brought about at least some reduction
in the scale of human rights violations. While it is improbable that any
government which believes terror to be necessary to its existence will abandon
it otherwise than by force, the combination
of
a
variety
of
different types of
external pressure can hope to limit its use.
The importance of the multiplicity of organisations and approaches outside
the legal framework in the international human rights effort
is
well under-
stood by
Dr.
Joyce. Thus he rightly gives prominence to the work of Amnesty
International, deservedly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
1977.
The present
plight of thousands of prisoners, detained and tortured in defiance
of
inter-
national law, cannot await the slow evolution of international enforcement
machinery. Even where legal machinery exists it is slow to operate. In the late
19609, British subjects of Asian origin were shuttlecocked around the world
and detained in circumstances which were subsequently held to be in violation
229
To continue reading
Request your trial