ABSTRACT
While the last 60 years has witnessed a dramatic expansion in the tabulation of international human rights and in state acceptance of international human rights, the existence of rights and freedoms can only go so far. Few would question the importance of the UDHR1 in establishing a ‘common standard of achievement’ for all peoples and all nations. However, what use are human rights to you, me or any of the millions whose rights are violated, if there is no possibility of enforcing them? Part of the General Assembly Resolution by which the UDHR was adopted, requested further examination of the ‘problem of petitions’ when considering measures of implementation. A piecemeal approach evolved, lacking coherence – as the former Chief of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Communications Branch comments wryly, ‘[c]ould it be that, while all governments are ready at all times to talk about human rights, most find it difficult to walk their talk?’.2
