Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism (Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law) - Softcover

Tomuschat, Christian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199268622 ISBN 13: 9780199268627

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2003

Synopsis

This volume presents human rights in action, focusing on their effectiveness as legal tools designed to benefit human beings. By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, it provides a multidimensional overview of human rights. After examining briefly the history of human rights, the author analyses the intellectual framework that forms the basis of their legitimacy. In particular, he covers the concept of universality and the widely used model that classifies human rights into clusters of different "generations". The volume then moves on to analyse the activities of the political institutions of the United Nations, the expert bodies established by the relevant treaties and the international tribunals specifically entrusted at the regional level with protecting human rights. The author explains how and why in recent years, the classical array of politically inspired informal devices has been enriched by the addition of international criminal procedures and by endeavours to introduce civil suits against alleged individual violators of human rights.

About this title

About the Author

Christian Tomuschat is Professor of Constitutional and International Law at Humboldt University, Berlin.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199268622
• ISBN 13: 9780199268627
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384