Article contents
More Honey Than Vinegar: Peer Review As a Middle Ground between Universalism and National Sovereignty
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
Summary
Peer review mechanisms, such as the Universal Periodic Review, rely upon traditional sovereign state diplomacy for contemporary human rights implementation. This article argues that this is a positive development for several reasons. First, at a theoretical level, it reveals an evolving maturity of the human rights regime through its capacity to detach from exclusively legalistic approaches to human rights implementation. Second, at a policy level, there is enough evidence of measured positive outcomes of peer review mechanisms to suggest a preference for more co-operative approaches to ensuring human rights compliance as a first and complementary step to other more controversial legal/adversarial means of implementation (such as the third pillar of the R2P concept). Finally, peer review mechanisms offer a theoretical and pragmatic framework conciliating between universalist and relativist conceptual approaches to human rights, accommodating and integrating views that call for compliance with international human rights law as well as those emphasizing respect for sovereignty.
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- Articles
- Information
- Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international , Volume 51 , 2014 , pp. 61 - 97
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Canadian Council on International Law / Conseil Canadien de Droit International, representing the Board of Editors, Canadian Yearbook of International Law / Comité de Rédaction, Annuaire Canadien de Droit International 2014
References
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122 See Lempinen, supra note 8.
123 International Service for Human Rights, “Human Rights Monitor, no 64/2008” (2008) at 11.
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133 Alvarez, supra note 117 at 36.
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139 Africa Peer Review Mechanism, Country Review Report of the Republic of Kenya (2006) at 325.
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141 Some related issues in UPR recommendations include asylum seekers, corruption, counter-terrorism, detention conditions, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, freedom of association and of the press, extra-judicial human rights violations by state agents, and internally displaced people.
142 For a seminal report on this subject, see Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report (Washington DC: Carnegie Corporation, 1997).
143 See, for example, Pagani, Fabrizio, “Peer Review: A Tool for Cooperation and Change—An Analysis of the OECD Working Method” (2002) OECD Secretary General, online: <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/16/1955285.pdf>;Google Scholar Herbert, Ross and Gruzd, Steven, The African Peer Review Mechanism: Lessons from the Pioneers (Johannesburg, South Africa: South African Institute for International Affairs, 2008)Google Scholar; Chene, Marie and Dell, Gillian, “Comparative Assessment of Anti-Corruption Conventions’ Review Mechanisms: U4 Expert Answer,” Transparency International (2008), online: <http://www.u4.no/publications/comparative-assessment-of-anti-corruption-conventions-review-mechanisms/ downloadasset/369>.Google Scholar
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