Saturday, January 29, 2022

International Law and Human Rights

 

International Law and Human Rights

Photo designed by Larissa Punzulan on Behance

Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.

Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Introduction:

International Law and Human Rights plays an very important role in maintaining the moral principles for human behaviour.In the Preamble of Universal Declaration of Human Rights it clearly mentions that the Human Rights is an inalienable rights for all the members of the Human family. It means that the Human Rights is an fundamental right which is naturally entitled to all the born human being, regardless of their age, sex, religion, colour, nationality, gender, languageand ethnicity etc.Human Rights are not meant to be applicable in certain region, it is applicable in all over the universe. In order to protect Human Rights in international level, the United Nations has taken several actions, signed treaties and created an commission for human rights which is popularly known as United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). In this blog, we are going to see various Human Rights issues happening around the world and steps taken in order to solve the issues and what actions may be taken in effective to solve the problems.

How does International Law protects Human Rights:

International Human Rights Law lays down obligation to countries by making them to sign international treaties in order to bring the countries under the obligation of international human rights to respect, protect and fulfil Human Rights. In order to respect the Human Rights, countries must not be interfere with individual enjoyment of human rights. In order to protect Human Rights, countries should protect the individuals and groups against human rights issue. In order to fulfil the Human Rights, countries should be ready to take positive action to fascilitate the enjoyment of Human Rights. Through the signing of treaties, countries must have to legislate rules and act upon the treaties which provides the principle protection of human rights under International Law.

Photo : Istock

The Core International Human Rights Instruments and their monitoring bodies:

There are currently nine core International Human Rights Instruments and each of instruments have certain committee members to implement the treaties provision by the countries.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) together with International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights with its two optional protocols and the International Convenant on Social, Economical and Cultural Rights are collectively forms the International Bill of Human Rights.

Reference OCHR – International Instruments

These are the list of Core International Human Rights Instruments.

  1. International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (ICERD)
  2. International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
  3. International Convenant on Social, Economical and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
  4. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
  5. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)
  6. Convention on Rights of Children (CRC)
  7. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
  8. International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
  9. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Human Rights Violation Data of Asia from 2006 to 2014. Source : Fund For Peace

Implementation of Human Rights in Palestine – Our Actions:

We can achieve full implementation of Human Rights across the universe only when we are ready to accept the ground reality of events that are happening now around the world. For example, take this serious human rights issue between Israel and State of Palestine. In that human rights issue, Israel uses its Israel Occupation Military Forces (IOF) to detain Palestinian and open firing at innocent children which causes many casualties daily. Palestinians were tortured and illegally detained. In First Intifada, which is a protest that happened in Palestine against Israel. In the first Intifada, nearly 2,50,000 Palestinian peoples were  and more than 15,000 were lost arms or leg (Reference Middle East Monitor ). Statistics show us that more than 1,75,000 peoples were illegally detained during the first Intifada. Palestinian NGO Bt’salem states that more than 1962 Palestinian were killed. Among them more than were 300 innocent children. More than 2000 houses of Palestinian peoples were illegally destroyed by Israel. Till now, more Palestinian’s were suffering from the human rights issue. We the people of other nations should stand in solidarity with Palestine in order to protect human rights. We have to take our action against these war crimes and inhuman acts of Israel by actively participating in Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Movement (BDS movement). If we manage to suppress various funds received for Israel it will create an impact on Israel’s Economy and it will make them to obey international human rights law. Reference B’Tsalem

Human Rights Violation data of Worldwide from 2006 to 2014. Source : Fund For Peace

Conclusion:

In order to protect human rights all over the world, we must have to understand that every human beings are equal and have their own fundamental rights irrespective of their religion, sex, language, origin, race, caste, colour and nationality etc. We have to take actively participate in all activities which encourage and promote the protection of human rights. We have to voice out the crimes fearlessly against those who infringe the human rights. We need to obey the human rights law which enforced in our country.

Let’s see is it possible to protect the human rights internationally !!

CRIMINAL LAW _CRESCENT SCHOOL OF LAW_ ALBERT JASPER G.P.

What is criminal law according to the amendment? 

Firstly indian criminal law are divided into three major acts I.e 

Indian penal code 1860 {IPC} ,

Code of Criminal procedure 1973 {CrPc} ,

Indian evidence Act 1872   .

These are the most used major acts in criminal law  

 

There are seven different types of crimes: 

 Crimes against persons 

Crimes against property 

Hate crimes  

Crimes against morality  

White collar crimes  

Organized crimes  

A sociological looks at crime  

Crimes against persons:   

An crime against an individual is called as personal crimes ie murder, rape, robbery, assault etc... these are all considered as crimes against persons. A person being harmed by another person is called as crimes against persons.


Relevant case laws:  

vishakha and others v the state of rajasthan 

In a case which deals with the sexual harassment of a women in workplace. bhanwari devi who was a social worker in rajasthan  

She worked under a social development of rural level which was about to stop child marriage in a village and the social program was initiated by the government of rajasthan  

Bhanwari devi en-devoured to stop the child marriage of ramkaran gujjar’s daughter, who was merely less than one year which means she was an infant only  

As a part of her duty she tried to terminate the marriage of the infant daughter. 


 

 social punishments or boycott

On September 1992 she was been gang raped  by ram gujjar and his five friends in front of her  husband. 

After that she was only left with the bloodstained dhoti of her husband to wrap her body, as a result of which they had to spend their whole night in the police station. 

The trial court made the discharge of the accused people for not being guilty.  

The high court in his judgement propounded that it was a case of gang rape which was conducted out of revengeful situation. 

All these statements and judgements, aroused women and NGO’s to file petition  

(PIL) in supreme court of india. 

JUDGMENT: 

The judgment of Vishakha's case was conveyed by Chief Justice J.S Verma as a representative of Justice Sujata Manihar and Justice B.N Kripal on account of writ petition which was file by Vishakha the victim of this case. The court observed that the fundamental rights under Article 14[2], 19[3](1)(g) and 21[4] of Constitution of India that, every profession, trade or occupation should provide safe working environment to the employees. It hampered the right to life and the right to live a dignified life. 

The court also suggested to have proper techniques for the implementation of cases where there is sexual harassment at workplace. The main aim/objective of the Supreme Court was to ensure gender equality among people and also to ensure that there should be no discrimination towards women at their workplace. 

After this case, the Supreme Court made the term Sexual harassment well defined, accordingly any physical touch or conduct, showing of pornography, any unpleasant taunt or misbehavior, or any sexual desire towards women, sexual favor will come under the ambit of sexual harassment. 

  Crimes against property: 

Crimes against property: Here a person’s property is being harmed. property crimes involve the theft of property without bodily harm to an an individual person but his property is been harmed, such as burglary, vehicle theft etc…

Here a person’s property is being harmed. 

 property crimes involve the theft of 

 property without bodily harm to an an 

 individual person but his property is  

been harmed, such as burglary, vehicle theft etc…  

Hate crimes:   

Hate crimes are crimes against persons or property that are invoking of race, gender, gender identity, religion, disability or ethnicity


 Crimes against morality:
 

Crimes against morality are also called as victimless crimes because there is no complainant or victim in these crimes eg: Prostitution, gambling, illegal drug use are the examples for victimless crimes.

White collar crimes: 

White collar crimes is a non-violent in  

nature and includes public corruption,  

fraud, bribery, mortgage fraud, money  

laundering these list keeps on goes up. 

 In short term white collar crimes are  

committed by business and government  

officials. This includes emblazing (stealing money from employees). And other infringement of income tax laws  

Relevant case law: 

Satyam Scandal: biggest-ever corporate accounting  fraud. This scam came into light on 7th January,  2009 by way of a confession letter  written by B. Ramalingam Raj. The  letter confessed to manipulating his  books of account by overstating the  assets and understating liabilities. 

The books of accounts are the reflection  of the company’s financial standing. 

They act as an important tool on which investors can rely on before investing their money. Accounts books were manipulated to cheat investors and shareholders. 

The whole scam cost approximately ₹14,000 crore and is considered to be an important factor which contributed to the recession of 2009. 

In this scandal, SEBI hit back strongly, holding Ramalinga Raju and nine major associates and guilty of insider trading, indulging in fraudulent and unfair trade practices. SEBI directed the accused to pay approximately ₹3000 crores within 45 days and also debarred them from accessing the security markets in any way for 14 years. SEBI managed to lash back strongly to ensure such a scam never happened again

Organized crimes:  

Organized crimes is committed by the structured groups of typically involving the distribution and sales of illegal goods and services. It is not described as mafia but the term can refer as any group that exercises control over large illegal enterprises such as drug trafficking, gambling, weapons smuggling, or money laundry. 

Sociological looks at crime:  

In sociological looks of crimes it considers the term of race, gender, class. For instances young urban poor black and brown people are being arrested and convicted more than others for personal and property crimes. To sociologists the question is this reflects actual difference in committing crimes among different groups or whether this reflects differential treatment by the criminal justice system. The answer is both. 

 

 

Image source:  

Criminal law images from  

Myonlineshiksha blog (https://blog.myonlineshiksha.com/storage/2021/04/POCSO-Act.jpg) 

 Pinterest (https://in.pinterest.com/pin/437904763750236882/) 

Property crimes image source from  

Richardfinklawoffices  

Morality crimes image Source from  

White collar crimes image source from  

Knowlaw.in