The ICJ has called on the Human Rights Council and its members and observers, individually and collectively, to ensure that universal and regional standards and mechanisms reinforce rather than undermine universal human rights standards.
Reflecting on the ICJ Declaration on Access to Justice and Rights to a Remedy in International Human Rights Systems, adopted during the 17th Congress of the ICJ in December 2012, the statement was submitted today to the UN ahead of the Human Rights Council’s 22nd regular session (25 February to 22 March 2013).
Recalling the emphasis placed on the right to a remedy in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted by consensus twenty years ago, the ICJ called on all States to:
- Ensure that regional standards and mechanisms reinforce rather than undermine universal human rights standards;
- Ensure that the outcome of the treaty body strengthening process indeed strengthens the treaty bodies;
- Actively promote universal acceptance of individual communications procedures of the treaty bodies, and fully implement interim decisions and final views of the treaty bodies; and
- Initiate an intergovernmental process for the elaboration and adoption of a statute for a World Court of Human Rights.
HRC22-Item8-WrittenStatementVDPA-A2J-LegalSubmission-2013 (download full statement in PDF)