ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the all-important “compliance” issue, and attempts to demonstrate that a substantive human rights law is capable of fitting comfortably into the existing system of international legal enforcement. It shows how the concept of a human rights law relates to the existing structure of international legal relations. The chapter describes that structure in a way that should illuminate its capacity for correcting illegal deviations from its systemic stability. It argues that an international law of human rights actually exists, and that it is derived from ostensibly particularistic sources as the Genocide and Slavery Conventions. The term “international law” suggests a law of, by, and for nations; they are the “creator-subjects” of international law. Customary international law is a set of entitlements that have developed through centuries of the “practice” of states. International law is replete with examples of reprisals, retortions, and other forms of self-help, and the accompanying rules of relatedness and proportionality.
