ABSTRACT
International model 527 33.4 Reporting with a monitoring commission and a complaints procedure 528 33.5 Regional human rights conventions in Europe, the Americas and Africa 532
Figure 33.1 UN human rights conventions 1965-2006 523 Figure 33.2 Composition of the Commission on Human Rights 1946-2006 525 Figure 33.3 The Amnesty International model 529
Classical and social fundamental rights
After the acceptance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 the General Assembly of the UN asked ECOSOC to have the Commission on Human Rights draw up a judicially-binding treaty with enforcement measures (see §20.5). The UN chose a covenant rather than a convention as the kind of treaty it wanted. Owing to the differences between classical fundamental rights, which do not require government intervention, and social and economic fundamental rights, the UN decided to draw up two covenants. Classical fundamental rights are the political and civil rights that stem from the ideas of the American and French Revolutions and are widely incorporated in national constitutions (see Figure 4.1). They grant freedoms to individuals which the state or government may not interfere with and are therefore also called ‘negative’ rights, which individuals in principle can enforce via the courts. Social fundamental rights are often ‘positive’ rights, as they require governments to take positive action to protect or favour individuals. They are less often embedded in constitutions and mostly cannot be demanded by individuals.
