Posted on December 3, 2015
A Brief History of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”) “guarantees a broad spectrum of civil and political rights.”[1] While many Americans are aware of endogenous civil and political rights stemming from the Bill of Rights and the Anglo-American legal tradition, many citizens may not realize that the United States is a state party to the Covenant, which purports to recognize that these rights may be part of the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” and derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.”[2]
It is difficult to imagine that World War II, a global conflict which caused “the deaths of perhaps sixty million human beings could ever possibly create, at the same time, new and unanticipated opportunities for the advancement of human rights. But it did.”[3] Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his 1941 State of the Union Address, claimed four fundamental freedoms existed “everywhere in the world”: the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear.[4] The statement that freedoms existed “everywhere in the world” is hallmark of the universality of these freedoms. Indeed, Roosevelt stated that this freedom was “no vision of a distant millennium,” but rather “a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our time and generation.”[5]
Toward the end of World War II, in April 1945, delegates from the allied powers gathered in San Francisco for the founding conference of the United Nations.[6] The goal of this conference was to create an organization “to prevent future aggression, assure the stability of frontiers, and provide a means for resolving disputes among nations.”[7]
As noted by author Mary Ann Glendon, some delegates hoped the “new organization would concern itself with much more than collective security,” taking U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt’s “four freedoms” speech to heart.[8] Established powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were resistant to accept a human rights–centric organization with binding legal authority.[9]
Author Paul Gordon Lauren discusses the Dumbarton Oaks meetings of the Great Powers and the general dissatisfaction of those who sought to realize Roosevelt’s ideal:
“The prominence of the Security Council, the diminution of the General Assembly, the emphasis on states rather than individuals, the absence of any provision at all about colonial empires, and the single mention of human rights buried in the text and confined to social and economic cooperation provoked shock, resentment and outrage.”[10]
The final draft of the United Nations Charter reflects a “notable departure from the Dumbarton Oaks proposals” and marks the shift of focus of international law from the nation state to the individual.[11] The United Nations Charter declares, inter alia, that the “peoples of the United Nations . . . determined to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, [and] in the equal rights of men and women of nations large and small.”[12]
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was the first true international body empowered to promote all the human rights of all the world’s people.[13] Sixteen member states were represented at the first session of the Human Rights Commission on February 10, 1947, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt.[14] Many of the discussions stemming out of the Human Rights Commission meetings formed the basis for later binding covenants.[15]
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding on states parties.[16] To codify the rights embodied in the UDHR, two treaties would be created: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“ICESCR”). These two documents would form the basis of the International Bill of Human Rights. In 1950, the General Assembly declared “the enjoyment of civil and political freedoms and of economic, social and cultural rights are interconnected and interdependent.”[17] The Human Rights Commission completed preparation of the draft of the ICCPR at its ninth and tenth sessions, in 1953 and 1954.[18]
On December 16, 1966, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the ICCPR.[19] The ICCPR took ten years to enter into force on March 23, 1976.[20] Currently, as of 2015, there are seventy-four signatories and one hundred sixty-eight parties to the Covenant.[21]
Tim Joseph is a 3L and a Senior Editor for the Journal of Law and International Affairs at the Penn State University Dickinson School of Law.
[1] International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, adopted 16 Dec. 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (entered into force 23 Mar. 1976), G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc A/6316 (1966); Senate Comm. on Foreign Relations, Report on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, S. Exec. Rep. 23, 1 (102d Sess. 1992), reprinted in 31 I.L.M. 645 (1992).
[2] See id.
[3] Paul Gorden Lauren. The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen 137 (3d ed. 2011).
[4] Elizabeth Borgwardt, FDR’s Four Freedoms and Wartime Transformations in America’s Discourse of Rights, in Bringing Human Rights Home: A History of Human Rights in the United States 31 (Cynthia Soohoo et al. eds., 2008).
[5] Franklin Roosevelt, Address of 6 January 1941; Lauren at 139.
[6] Mary Ann Glendon. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 3 (2002).
[9] Lauren at 166.
[10] Id.
[11] Id. at 184.
[12] Charter of the United Nations, Preamble.
[13] Howard Tolley, Jr. Decision-making at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 1979–82, 5 Human Rts Q. 27 (1983) (“previous international human rights activity had produced treaties banning singularly offensive practices, such as slavery, or protecting uniquely vulnerable groups, such as refugees or civilian victims of war.”).
[14] Glendon at 35.
[15] See id. at 84. (“The U.K. Foreign Office had submitted an incomplete covenant–covering only political and civil rights and without implementation measures–to the Human Rights Commission. Though not a major source for the Universal Declaration, this U.K. draft became influential in other contexts. Later it served as a basis for the 1966 UN International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights.”).
[16] See id. (“A declaration by the UN General Assembly takes the form of a resolution that, like a congressional resolution, has no legal force of its own. Covenants, conventions, and treaties (more or less interchangeable terms) are agreements by which nations undertake legally binding obligations.”).
[17] United Nations. “Fact Sheet No.2 (Rev.1), The International Bill of Human Rights http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FactSheet2Rev.1en.pdf (1996). (Accessed: Apr. 9, 2015).
[20] Lauren at 243; see 31 I.L.M. at 645.
[21]United Nations Treaty Collection. Status as at: 09-04-2015 05:00:36 EDT. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&lang=en. (Accessed: Apr. 9, 2015).
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