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Modernizing the UN Human Rights System. By Bertrand G. Ramcharan. Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2019. Pp. xvi, 241. Index.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2021

B.S. Chimni
B.S. Chimni*
Affiliation:
O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India
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Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 115 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 171 - 176
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Copyright © 2021 by The American Society of International Law

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References

1 “Shockingly skewed illness and mortality rates have tracked and exposed racial and class divides.” Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, The Parlous State of Poverty Eradication, para. 35 (July 2, 2020), available at https://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Alston-Poverty-Report-FINAL.pdf. See also Jeffrey D. Sachs, et al., Sustainable Development Report 2020: The Sustainable Development Goals and Covid-19 (2020), available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/sustainabledevelopment.report/2020/2020_sustainable_development_report.pdf.

2 António Guterres, Tackling the Inequality Pandemic: A New Social Contract for a New Era, Nelson Mandela Foundation Annual Lecture (July 18, 2020), at https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/annual-lecture-2020-secretary-general-guterress-full-speech.

3 António Guterres, The Highest Aspiration: A Call to Action for Human Rights (2020), available at https://www.un.org/sg/sites/www.un.org.sg/files/atoms/files/The_Highest_Asperation_A_Call_To_Action_For_Human_Right_English.pdf

4 Id.

5 The text of the amicus curiae brief is available at https://www.thehinducentre.com/resources/article30979486.ece/binary/pdf_upload-370845.pdf. See generally UN OHCHR Press Release, Press Briefing on India (Dec. 13, 2019, at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25425&LangID=E. The text of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, is available at http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2019/214646.pdf.

6 UN OHCHR Press Release, Update of the Situation of Human Rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir from May 2018 to April 2019 (July 8, 2019) available at https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IN/KashmirUpdateReport_8July2019.pdf; UN OHCHR Press Release, UN Experts Call for Urgent Action to Remedy “Alarming” Human Rights Situation in Jammu and Kashmir (August 4, 2020), at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26148&LangID=E.

7 Walling, Carrie Booth, The United Nations Security Council and Human Rights, 26 Glob. Governance 291Google Scholar; Security Council Rep., 2016, No. 1, Human Rights and the Security Council—An Evolving Role (Jan. 25, 2016), at https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/research-reports/human-rights-and-the-security-council-an-evolving-role.php.

8 Reisman, W. Michael & Stevick, Douglas L., The Applicability of International Law Standards to United Nations Economic Sanctions Programmes, 9 Eur. J. Int'l L. 86 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 SC Res. 1973 (Mar. 17, 2011), at https://www.undocs.org/S/RES/1973%20(2011).

10 Alston, Phillip, Against a World Court for Human Rights, 28 Eth. & Int'l Aff. 197 (2014)Google Scholar. For the reasons for the revival of this proposal in the first decade of this century and for scepticism about its possible creation, see de la Rasilla, Ignacio, The World Court of Human Rights: Rise, Fall and Revival?, 19 Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 585 (2019)Google Scholar.

11 See generally Ajevski, Marjan, Fragmentation in International Human Rights Law—Beyond Conflict of laws, 32 Nordic J. Hum. Rts. 87 (2014)Google Scholar; Eva Brems, We Need to Look at International Human Rights Law (Also) as a Whole, EJIL:Talk! (Oct. 17, 2014), at https://www.ejiltalk.org/we-need-to-look-at-international-human-rights-law-also-as-a-whole.

12 Rep. of the Int'l L. Comm'n Study Group, Fifty-Eighth Sess., Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Finalized by Martti Koskenniemi, UN Doc. A/CN.4/L.682 (Apr. 13, 2006).

13 “COVID-19 is projected to push more than 70 million additional people into extreme poverty, and hundreds of millions more into unemployment and poverty. More than 250 million people are at risk of acute hunger.” Report of the Special Rapporteur, supra note 1, para. 2.

14 Chimni, B.S., International Institutions Today: An Imperial Global State in the Making, 15 Eur. J. Int'l L. 1 (2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 B.S. Chimni, The Rituals of Human Rights Bodies: A View from the Global South (unpublished manuscript), available at http://regnet.anu.edu.au/research/publications/6120/rituals-human-rights-workshop-working-paper-no-6-rituals-human-rights.

16 Wuerth, Ingrid, International Law in the Post-Human Rights Era, 96 Tex. L. Rev. 279, 312–16 (2017)Google Scholar.

17 Id. at 279.

18 Id. at 350.

19 Id. at 348.

20 Mégret, Frédéric, Having It Both Ways: International Human Rights Law Cannot Both Be in Decline and Be (That) Problematic for International Law, 96 Tex. L. Rev. Online 114, 121 (2018)Google Scholar.

21 Id. at 136.

22 Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018).

23 B.S. Chimni, International Law and World Order: A Critique of Contemporary Approaches 507–09 (2017).

24 Hilary Charlesworth & Christine Chinkin, The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis (2000).

25 Gathii, James Thuo, Writing Race and Identity in a Global Context: What CRT and TWAIL Can Learn From Each Other, 67 UCLA L. Rev. (forthcoming 2020)Google Scholar, available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=3620343.

26 For a positive view of the role of human rights, see Kathryn Sikkink, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century (2017).

27 U.S. Dep't of State Press Release, Remarks on the UN Human Rights Council: Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State (June 19, 2018), at https://www.state.gov/remarks-on-the-un-human-rights-council. Ramcharan recognizes this problem and suggests the possibility that the UN General Assembly “arrange for evaluations of the human rights records of countries that are candidates for election” to the HRC and take these “into account with a view to excluding gross violators of human rights” (p.161). But this is easier said than done.

28 U.S. Dep't of State Press Release, supra note 27.

29 Executive Order on Blocking of Property of Certain Persons Associated With The Criminal Court (June 11, 2020), available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-blocking-property-certain-persons-associated-international-criminal-court.

30 Colum Lynch, U.N Chief Faces Internal Criticism Over Human Rights, For. Pol'y (Feb. 4, 2020), at https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/04/un-chief-antonio-guterres-internal-criticism-human-rights. Others defend the record suggesting that “dialogue, cooperation, and assistance are likely to work far better than public condemnation.” Marc Limon, Is UN Secretary-General António Guterres Committed to Human Rights?, OpenGlobalRights, at https://www.openglobalrights.org/is-un-secretary-general-antonio-guterres-committed-to-human-rights.