ABSTRACT
The period since 1945 has witnessed a remarkable growth in international human rights instruments at both the global and regional levels. Many human rights lawyers have commented adversely on the 18 years it took the United Nations to move from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the more detailed Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic and Social Rights. However, compared with the failure to produce any detailed human rights treaties in the first half of the century, it seems a swift and dramatic achievement. Since 1966, the United Nations has continued to produce landmark charters on Racial Discrimination (1966), Discrimination Against Women (1979), Torture (1984) and the Rights of Children (1989). This treaty making activity has been supplemented by the extensive creation of ‘soft law’ declarations, bodies of principles or codes of conduct. In addition, regional human rights commitments have been institutionalised in Africa, Europe and the Americas.
