How Good Is International Law for Human Rights?

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

This roundtable will take an in-depth look at the dynamic interplay between international law and the human rights regime. The human rights regime is becoming increasingly legalized and this development has brought with it certain advantages and disadvantages concerning human rights norm advocacy and protection. While welcoming the advantages of legalization, its shortcomings are becoming increasingly pronounced. These include: the privileging in lawmaking of the interests and understandings of the most powerful actors in the international system that shape the content and reach of the relevant norms; the tendency of legalization to turn complex political and social issues into technical ones that can be resolved through adjudication; the emphasis on the consequences as opposed to the causes of violations; increasing regime complexity that produces competing/contending understandings of the applicable legal rules; and accountability gaps relating to the actions of non-state entities who are increasingly impacting human well-being. In this context, the participants in this roundtable will critically examine (1) growing regime complexity in the area of human protection and the corresponding challenges facing efforts to advance structural readings of the root causes of abusive conduct that would highlight the linkages between violations and embedded institutional constraints; here, we will analyze and assess issues facing ICC prosecutions and state cooperation with the Court, and the attempts to develop –with assistance from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights- investigative capacity inside Mexico to address the problem of disappearances without factoring in the complex domestic security environment ; (2) the failure of international law to register the degree of human insecurity caused by the interactions between public and private actors and the implications of such failure for the “domestication” of international legal norms; (3) the accountability gap exhibited in the interface between global (like CEDAW) and local mechanisms and processes and the resulting failures of vernacularization initiatives in the areas of women’s rights and LGBT rights; and (4) and related to the former, enforcement challenges resulting from the rising profile of subnational implementation and the potential for varied and contested understandings of the relevant international rules and standards. Particular emphasis will be placed here on subnational implementation efforts in the areas of women’s rights and children’s rights in the US (Austin, Buffalo, Chicago, Louisville New York, Savannah and Washington, DC).

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 45: Human Rights

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 26: Law and Courts

Chair

• George J. Andreopoulos CUNY- John Jay College and the Graduate Center

Presenters

• George J. Andreopoulos CUNY- John Jay College and the Graduate Center

• Charlotte Ku Texas A&M University

• Erica Marat National Defense University

• Mark P. Gibney University of North Carolina-Asheville

• Davis L. Brown Baylor University