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Guide to International Human
Rights Practice
Second Edition
T H E P R O C E D U R A L A S P E C T S OF I N T E R N A T I O N A L L A W I N S T I T U T E , e s t a b l i s h e d i n 1 9 6 5 b y a g r o u p o f
academic lawyers, g o v e r n m e n t officials, a n d private practitioners, is a nonprofit, educational orga-
nization incorporated u n d e r the laws of New York whose principal aim is to plan and carry o u t
research in various areas of procedural international law. T h e results of this research have been
published in the 18-volume PAIL Series and in n u m e r o u s m o n o g r a p h s , law review articles, a n d
occasional papers. A m o n g its many publications in the h u m a n rights area is the Guide to Interna-
tional Human Rights Practice.
T h e Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute is a tax-exempt, Section 501(c)(3) organiza-

tion. As such it welcomes gifts and contributions f r o m foundations, corporations, a n d individual
donors. For f u r t h e r information about the Institute's activities and publications contact:
Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute

2550 M Street, N.W.
Suite 800
Washington, DC 20037
T H E INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW GROUP, e s t a b l i s h e d in 1 9 7 8 , is a n o n p r o f i t , p u b l i c i n t e r -

est law center concerned with the promotion and protection of international h u m a n rights. Using
many of the international and domestic procedures contained in the Guide to International Human
Rights Practice, the Law G r o u p provides information and legal assistance to organizations a n d indi-
viduals in cases of h u m a n rights violations. F u n d e d by f o u n d a t i o n grants a n d individual contribu-
tions and assisted in its work by attorneys in Washington, D.C., the Law G r o u p offers its expertise
on a pro bono basis.
T h e International H u m a n Rights Law G r o u p is a tax-exempt, Section 501 (c)(3) organization in-

corporated u n d e r the laws of Washington, D.O. For information about the Law Group's activities
a n d other publications or for assistance contact:
International H u m a n Rights Law G r o u p

1601 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20009
Guide to
International Human
Rights Practice
Second Edition
Edited for the
Procedural Aspects of International Law
Institute in collaboration with the
International Human Rights Law Group
by Hurst H annum
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia

Copyright © 1992 by the University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Guide to international h u m a n rights practice / edited for the Procedural

Aspects of International Law Institute in collaboration with the
International H u m a n Rights Law G r o u p by Hurst H a n n u m . — 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8122-1410-2
1. H u m a n rights. I. H a n n u m , Hurst. II. Procedural Aspects of
International Law Institute. III. International H u m a n Rights Law
G r o u p (Washington, D.C.)
K3240.4.G94 1992
341.4'81—dc20 92-16770
CIP
Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything
wrong he was arrested one fine morning. . . .
Who could these men be? What were they talking about? What authority
could they represent? K. lived in a country with a legal constitution, there
was universal peace, all the laws were in force; who dared seize him in his
own dwelling?
.. . "What are your papers tous?" cried the tall warder.. .. "We are humble
subordinates who can scarcely find our way through a legal document and
have nothing to do with your case except to stand guard over you for ten hours
a day and draw our pay for it. That's all we are, but we're quite capable of
grasping the fact that the high authorities we serue, before they would order
such an arrest at this, must be quite well informed about the reasons for the
arrest and the person of the prisoner. There can be no mistake about that. Our
officials, so far as I know them, and I know only the lowest grades among them,
never go hunting for crime in the populace, but, as the Law decrees, are drawn
toward the guilty and must then send out us warders. This is the Law. How
could there be a mistake in that?"
Franz Kafka, T h e Trial
It is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort,

to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be pro-
tected by the rule of law. . .
Universal Declaration of H u m a n Rights
Contents
Foreword xi
RICHARD Β. LILLICH
Acknowledgments xii
HURST H A N N U M
Part I. Preliminary Considérations
1. An Overview of International H u m a n Rights Law 3

RICHARD B. BILDER
2. Implementing Human Rights: An Overview of 19

Strategies and Procedures
HURST HANNUM
Part il. International Procedures for Making

Human Rights Complaints Within
the UN System
3. Treaty-Based Procedures for Making H u m a n Rights 41

Complaints Within the UN System
SIÂN LEWIS-ANTHONY
4. United Nations Non-Treaty Procedures for Dealing 60

with Human Rights Violations
NIGEL S. RODLEY
vili Contents
5. The Complaint Procedure of the United Nations 86

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
S T E P H E N P. M A R K S
6. Human Rights Complaint Procedures of the 99

International Labour Organization
LEE SWEPSTON
Part III. Regional Systems for the Protection

of H u m a n Rights
7. The Inter-American Human Rights System 119

D I N A H L. S H E L T O N
8. Europe: T h e Council of Europe, the CSCE, and the 133

European Community
KEVIN B O Y L E
9. The African Charter on Human and Peoples'Rights 159

CEES FLINTERMAN AND EVELYN ANKUMAH
Part IV. Other Techniques and Forums

for Protecting Rights
10. International Reporting Procedures 173

SANDRA COLIVER
11. Quasi-Legal Standards and Guidelines for Protecting 192

Human Rights
J I R I TOMAN
12. The International and National Protection of 211

Refugees
MARYELLEN FULLERTON
13. The Role of Domestic Courts in Enforcing 228

International Human Rights Law
RICHARD B. LILLICH
Contents ix
Appendixes
A. Bibliographic Essay 249
DIANA VINCENT-DAVISS
B. Checklist to Help Select the Most Appropriate Forum 267
C. Model Communication 271
D. Addresses of Intergovernmental Organizations 276
E. Ratifications of Selected Human Rights Instruments 280

F. Citations for Major International Human Rights 291
Instruments
Contributors 295
Index 299
Foreword
T h e Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute, a n o n p r o f i t

corporation of distinguished lawyers and scholars organized in 1965
that f o r some years has enjoyed consultative status with t h e United
Nations, has had an interest in a n d c o m m i t m e n t to the d e v e l o p m e n t
a n d e n f o r c e m e n t of international h u m a n rights law d a t i n g back to its
f o r m a t i o n . In 1978, it established the International H u m a n Rights
Law G r o u p , h e a d q u a r t e r e d in Washington, D.C., a non-profit, public
interest law center that provides i n f o r m a t i o n a n d professional assis-
tance to help r e m e d y h u m a n rights violations a r o u n d the world. In
1983, the Institute spun-off the Law G r o u p , which has continued to
provide its expertise on a p r o b o n o basis to n o n - g o v e r n m e n t a l orga-
nizations, groups, a n d individuals in the United States a n d overseas.
As the President a n d first C h a i r m a n of the Law G r o u p , I realized
early on that its small professional staff, which initially consisted solely
of the Executive Director, Amy Young, would n e e d considerable as-
sistance f r o m Washington-area attorneys a n d law students who could
volunteer their services on particular cases o r projects. Since in the
1970s few such persons had h a d a course in International H u m a n
Rights Law or been exposed to the "nitty-gritty" of actual practice
in the area, Amy a n d I organized a series of lectures a n d panel dis-
cussions entitled " T h e Nuts a n d Bolts of Practicing International H u -
m a n Rights Law."
In the course of p r e p a r i n g materials f o r distribution to persons at-
t e n d i n g the seminar series, we soon realized that t h e r e was a critical
n e e d f o r a publication describing the m a j o r h u m a n rights p r o c e d u r e s
in o n e comprehensive, u n d e r s t a n d a b l e , a n d practice-oriented pack-
age. T h e first edition of this Guide, s u p p o r t e d by g e n e r o u s grants
f r o m the Ford Foundation a n d the Jacob Blaustein Institute f o r the
A d v a n c e m e n t of H u m a n Rights, was the Law Group's response to
this need. Edited by H u r s t H a n n u m , t h e n the Institute's Executive
xll Foreword
Director, it was designed, in the words of Amy's Foreword, "to assist

lawyers, n o n g o v e r n m e n t a l organizations, a n d individuals in identify-
ing, selecting, a n d effectively using the growing n u m b e r of proce-
d u r e s available to redress violations of h u m a n rights."
Since the Guide's, publication in 1984, it has become an essential
desk book, to quote o n e reviewer, "not only f o r h u m a n rights volun-
teers, but also f o r m o r e sophisticated h u m a n rights advocates." T h i s
new edition, truly a "revised" r a t h e r than a "second" one, builds u p o n
its p i o n e e r i n g predecessor. While retaining the overall f r a m e w o r k of
the 1984 volume, it adds, drops, e x p a n d s , a n d revises chapters to take
into account the various regimes a n d p r o c e d u r e s that have been de-
vised o r developed d u r i n g the past decade. Nine contributors to the
first edition plus six new authors, all specialists in their fields, con-
tribute to a p a n o r a m i c yet meticulously detailed survey of the many
a n d varied techniques a n d f o r a now available f o r the protection of
h u m a n rights. A t h o r o u g h l y revised a n d u p d a t e d set of appendices
(including an excellent, informative Bibliographic Essay) contain m u c h
informative a n d practically useful data f o r h u m a n rights lawyers,
n o n - g o v e r n m e n t a l personnel, and o t h e r persons interested in m a k i n g
the p r o m o t i o n a n d protection of h u m a n rights a reality.
In conclusion, as the editor of this volume does in his Acknowl-
edgments, I should like to express my appreciation once again to the
Jacob Blaustein Institute not only f o r its welcome s u p p o r t of the initial
enterprise but also f o r its follow-up g r a n t which enabled the Institute
to u n d e r w r i t e a small, one-day c o n f e r e n c e a n d a portion of the edi-
torial expenses i n c u r r e d in the p r e p a r a t i o n of this revised edition of
the Guide. H u r s t , as editor of both editions, is himself owed a very
special debt of gratitude f o r the s u p e r b j o b he has d o n e in r e d u c i n g a
large m o u n d of manuscripts into such a c o h e r e n t a n d well-organized
end product. A l t h o u g h h e left the Institute f o r T h e Fletcher School
d u r i n g the years this book was in p r e p a r a t i o n , he remains on the In-
stitute's Advisory Council a n d will edit f u t u r e editions of the Guide, a
flagship publication of the Institute in which it rightly takes great
pride.
Richard B. Lillich
Charlottesville, Virginia
February, 1992
Acknowledgments
The genesis of the Guide lies in the vision of Richard Lillich, President
of the Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute, Sidney Lis-
kofsky, Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement
of Human Rights, and Amy Young, Executive Director of the Inter-
national Human Rights Law Group from its creation until 1991, who
more than a decade ago saw the need for a practice-oriented guide to
international human rights laws which could provide concrete advice
to individuals and NGOs around the world. T h e explosion of human
rights norms and procedures since the publication of the Guide in the
early 1980s makes that need even greater today.
I would also like to acknowledge with thanks the financial support
of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human
Rights for both editions of the Guide.
The greatest debt of gratitude is owed to the contributors to the
present volume, who were frequently called upon to sacrifice more
than one well-turned phrase (and numerous footnotes) in the interest
of greater consistency for the work as a whole. The gathering of ex-
pertise represented in this work is perhaps unparalleled, and each
author has advanced the cause of human rights in many ways beyond
writing the chapter that he or she has so generously contributed. In
addition, I would like to thank those who contributed to the success
of the first edition of this work—Theo van Boven, David Carliner,
Joe Eldridge, Dana Fischer, Rick Gittleman, Menno Kamminga, Rob-
ert Norris, and David Weissbrodt—who, for various reasons, were un-
able to continue their association with this revision.
Finally, invaluable advice and assistance in preparing portions of
the manuscript were provided by Stephanie Farrior, now a professor
at Dickinson School of Law, and Makau wa Matua, Projects Director
xlv Acknowledgments
of the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. At The Fletcher

School, special thanks are due to Mary Pyche.
Hurst Hannum
The Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy
November 1991
Parti
Preliminary
Considerations
Chapter 1
A n Overview of International
Human Rights Law
Richard B. Bilder
The international human rights movement is based on the concept

that every nation has an obligation to respect the human rights of its
citizens and that other nations and the international community have
a right, and responsibility, to protest if states do not adhere to this
obligation. International human rights law consists of the body of in-
ternational rules, procedures, and institutions developed to imple-
ment this concept and to promote respect for human rights in all
countries on a worldwide basis.
While international human rights law focuses on international rules,
procedures, and institutions, it typically requires at least some knowl-
edge of and sensitivity to the relevant domestic law of countries with
which the practitioner is concerned. In particular, one must be aware
of national laws regarding the implementation of treaties and other
international obligations, the conduct of foreign relations, and the
protection accorded by domestic law to human rights. Indeed, since
international law is generally applicable only to states and does not
normally create rights directly enforceable by individuals in national
courts, international human rights law can be made most effective
only if each state makes these rules part of its own domestic legal
system. Many international human rights activities are directed at en-
couraging countries to incorporate international human rights stan-
dards into their own internal legal order in this way. Thus, the work
of international human rights lawyers and national human rights (or
"civil rights") lawyers is closely related and often overlaps.
In practice, the differences between international human rights
and national civil rights often lie more in emphasis than substance.
Concern for human rights rarely begins or ends at any single nation's
boundaries, and effective action to protect and promote human rights,
4 Preliminary Considerations
whether at home or abroad, can be furthered by the imaginative use

of both national and international techniques.
It is not necessary to be an expert in international human rights law
to be able to make a significant contribution to the promotion of hu-
man rights. However, a knowledge of this body of law may suggest
ways in which such efforts can be pursued more effectively. T h e pur-
pose of this introductory chapter is to present at least a broad over-
view of the field.
A Brief Historical Note

Although the idea that human beings are inherently entitled to cer-
tain fundamental rights and freedoms has roots early in human
thinking, the concept that human rights are an appropriate subject for
international regulation is very new. Throughout most of human his-
tory, the way one government treated its own citizens was considered
solely its own business and not a proper concern of any other nation.
From an international legal standpoint, human rights questions were
regarded as matters entirely within each state's own domestic juris-
diction and wholly inappropriate for regulation by international law.
The United States, for example, could properly complain to France if
France mistreated American citizens living in France; international law
had early established rules as to how each nation had to behave re-
garding nationals of another state ("aliens") present within its terri-
tory, and a state could protest or extend its diplomatic protection to
its own nationals if their rights were violated. But, under traditional
international law, the United States could not legitimately complain
solely because France mistreated its own French citizens; if the United
States tried to interfere in such matters, France could claim that the
United States was violating French sovereignty by illegally intervening
in its domestic affairs.
While this attitude—that human rights questions were generally
outside the purview of international concern or regulation—was
broadly accepted until World War II, several developments before
then suggested at least limited exceptions to the rule that human
rights questions were wholly internal. These included the antislavery
movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which cul-
minated in adoption of the Slavery Convention of 1926; early inter-
national expressions of concern over the treatment of Jews in Russia
and Armenians in the Ottoman empire; the inclusion in certain post-
World War I treaties establishing new states in Eastern Europe of pro-
visions and procedures to protect minorities within those countries;
certain aspects of the League of Nations mandates system; and the
Overview of International Human Rights Law 5
establishment in 1919 of the International Labour Organization (ILO)

and the subsequent activities of that organization.
However, most of what we now regard as "international human
rights law" has emerged only since 1945, when, with the implications
of the holocaust and other Nazi denials of human rights very much in
mind, the nations of the world decided that the promotion of human
rights and fundamental freedoms should be one of the principal pur-
poses of the new United Nations organization. To implement this
purpose, the UN Charter established general obligations requiring
member states to respect human rights and provided for the creation
of a Human Rights Commission to protect and advance those rights.
UN concern with and involvement in human rights has expanded
dramatically since 1945. Numerous international instruments have
been adopted, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and the Genocide Convention in 1948; the Convention on the Politi-
cal Rights of Women in 1952; the Standard Minimum Rules for the
Treatment of Prisoners in 1957; the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1965; the International Cove-
nant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Eco-
nomic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1966; the Protocol relating to
the Status of Refugees in 1967; the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979; the Convention
against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment in 1984; the Convention on the Rights of the Child in
1989; and the Convention on Migrant Workers in 1990. As noted
throughout this book, many new international procedures to protect
particular human rights also have been developed in recent years.
Increased UN involvement in human rights matters during this
period was mirrored by growing regional interest in human rights
questions, as illustrated by the entry into force in 1953 and subse-
quent evolution of the European Convention on Human Rights, the
establishment of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
in 1960, the entry into force of the American Convention on Human
Rights in 1978, and the entry into force of the African Charter on
Human and Peoples' Rights in 1986.
By the late 1950s, human rights had become firmly established on
the international agenda, but only fairly recently have human rights
issues achieved real political recognition and importance. Before
1960, human rights questions were regularly debated in the United
Nations, but few states paid such discussions much attention. The
rapid growth of UN membership in the early 1960s to include a sig-
nificant number of African and other developing nations deeply con-
cerned with problems of self-determination and racial discrimination,
particularly in southern Africa, and the growing emphasis by Arab

countries on human rights aspects of the Palestine question after 1967
resulted in these specific human rights issues being given a prominent
role in UN politics. Increasing interest in human rights on the part of
the U.S. Congress beginning in the early 1970s and President Jimmy
Carter's decision that international human rights should play a lead-
ing role in U.S. foreign policy raised interest in human rights in the
United States and around the world. T h e international human rights
movement received further world attention when the Nobel Prize for
Peace was awarded in 1977 to Amnesty International for its human
rights work for "prisoners of conscience," and, in 1980, to the Argen-
tine human rights activist Adolfo Perez Esquivel.
Considering the relatively recent emergence of much international
human rights law, it is not surprising that rules are still imprecise,
fragmentary, and sometimes overlapping, and institutions and pro-
cedures are still evolving. There seems little doubt, however, that the
basic concept of international human rights has become firmly estab-
lished in international law and practice, and that international human
rights law is now recognized as an important and distinct subject.
What Is the Content of International

Human Rights Law?
International human rights law is derived from a variety of sources
and involves many kinds of instruments, both international and na-
tional. The details of international procedures to protect human
rights are examined in the remainder of the present volume. Here, a
few examples may illustrate the many different types of materials with
which lawyers and others concerned with international human rights
should be familiar.
First, there are now over twenty important multilateral treaties in
force in the field of human rights, which create legally binding obli-
gations for the nations that are parties to them. 1 T h e most important
is the United Nations Charter itself. The Charter is binding on almost
every country in the world and establishes at least general obligations
to respect and promote human rights. More specific international hu-
man rights obligations are established in a series of UN-sponsored
international human rights agreements of global scope and the three
regional human rights conventions now in force. Other relevant and
important treaties have been concluded under the auspices of the
ILO, UNESCO, and other UN specialized agencies.
Second, there are a great number of international declarations,
resolutions, and recommendations relevant to international human

rights that have been adopted by the United Nations or by other in-
ternational organizations or conferences. While these instruments are
not directly binding in a legal sense, they establish broadly recognized
standards and are frequently invoked in connection with human
rights issues.2 The most important of these is the Universal Decla-
ration of Human Rights, adopted without a dissenting vote by the
UN General Assembly in 1948, which has provided a framework for
much subsequent work. Another important instrument is the 1975
Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(the Helsinki Accord), which has acquired major political significance
in international human rights efforts. Other examples include such
instruments as the 1957 Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment
of Prisoners and the 1981 General Assembly Declaration on Religious
Intolerance.
Third, a variety of decisions and actions by UN organs or other
international bodies have supported specific efforts to protect human
rights. Examples include the International Court of Justice's 1971 Ad-
visory Opinion on the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia
(South West Africa); Security Council resolutions imposing manda-
tory sanctions on Rhodesia in 1968, on South Africa in 1977, and
on Iraq in 1990; General Assembly resolutions dealing with human
rights issues in Southern Africa, Chile, and the Middle East; reso-
lutions and other actions by the UN Commission on Human Rights
and its Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Pro-
tection of Minorities, the Human Rights Committee established un-
der the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other treaty-based
supervisory bodies; and a growing body of decisions by regional com-
missions and courts in Europe and the Americas.
Fourth, there are a great many national laws, regulations, court and
administrative decisions, and policy pronouncements relevant to the
implementation of international human rights objectives, both within
each country and with respect to its relations with other countries. In
the United States, for example, these domestic tools currently include
provisions of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights; legislation pro-
hibiting discrimination and slavery and ensuring the political rights
of women; legislation and regulations implementing UN sanctions
against South Africa; legislation denying security assistance to any
country whose government engages in a consistent pattern of gross
violations of internationally recognized human rights; judicial de-
cisions dealing with aspects of international human rights law; and
federal, state, and municipal judicial and administrative decisions
dealing with aspects of American corporate operations in South Af-

rica. Many other countries also have extensive bodies of domestic law
or policy relevant to international human rights.
Finally, there is a variety of international and national institutions
relevant to the international protection of human rights, many of
which are discussed in subsequent chapters. In addition to those spe-
cifically concerned with human rights, international organs or agen-
cies such as the UN General Assembly, Security Council, Economic
and Social Council, and specialized agencies; the International Court
of Justice; the Organization of American States (OAS); the Council
of Europe; the Court of Justice of the European Community; the
Organization of African Unity; and nongovernmental organizations
such as the Red Cross may consider human rights issues. At the do-
mestic level, legislative bodies; ministries dealing with foreign re-
lations, trade, and defense; and courts at all levels may on occasion
become involved in human rights questions or serve as arenas for
promoting human rights objectives.
Obtaining documents, other materials, or information relevant to
international human rights law is not always easy. T h e most important
materials are identified in the Bibliographical Essay contained in Ap-
pendix A, and the basic sources for both legal and factual information
on international human rights include:
• compilations of human rights documents contained in UN and

other reference works;
• law-oriented case books or course books, primarily utilized in law
schools, and other teaching materials;
• regular publications of intergovernmental organizations, such as
the United Nations, Council of Europe, and Organization of Ameri-
can States;
• annual reports of specialized human rights bodies;
• periodicals and reports of NGOs, in particular those of major
NGOs such as Amnesty International, Minority Rights Group, Hu-
man Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists;
• human rights periodicals, including reporting services like the Hu-
man Rights Internet Reporter and Human Rights Monitor and academic
journals such as Human Rights Quarterly and the Human Rights Law
Journal·,
• bibliographies, both general and those which specialize in human
rights;
• official government documents, which often set forth government
policy in the human rights area; and
• news media reports, which can provide factual information on a

particular human rights situation.
Who Is Bound by International Human Rights Law?

Unlike individual sovereign states, the community of nations has no
international legislature empowered to enact laws that are directly
binding on all countries. (Resolutions adopted by the UN General
Assembly are only recommendations and do not legally bind its mem-
bers.) Instead, states establish legally binding obligations among
themselves in other ways, principally by expressly consenting to an
obligation by ratifying a treaty or other international agreement or
through wide acceptance in state practice of a rule as binding custom-
ary international law.
Moreover, international law, including human rights law, is primar-
ily applicable to states rather than to individuals. Consequently, these
international rules generally can become a source of domestic legal
obligation for a state's officials and of domestic rights for that nation's
citizens only through their incorporation in some manner into the
state's own internal law.
Since these principles can affect the usefulness of particular rules
of international human rights law to lawyers or other persons pur-
suing human rights objectives, a brief discussion of them may be
helpful.
In practice, the most important and useful source of international
human rights law is likely to be international treaties, which clearly
and directly create international obligations for the parties. But trea-
ties are binding only when they are in force and only with respect to
the nations that have expressly agreed to become parties to them.
Thus, in determining whether a treaty is legally relevant to a par-
ticular human rights situation in a particular country, it is important
to ascertain (1) whether the treaty contains express language re-
quiring the parties to respect the particular human rights at issue;
(2) whether the treaty is in force, since multilateral treaties typically
do not take effect until a certain number of nations have deposited
their ratifications (formal instruments indicating their intent to be
bound); (3) whether the nation involved has in fact ratified the treaty,
since signature alone may not legally bind a nation to the obligations
of a multilateral treaty; and (4) whether the nation in question has
filed any reservations that expressly modify its treaty obligations.
As indicated above, there is a substantial number of human rights
treaties in force, which together establish a widespread network of
h u m a n rights obligations. Almost all nations in the world a r e now

parties to t h e U N C h a r t e r . While the h u m a n rights provisions of the
C h a r t e r a r e broadly stated, it seems now generally accepted that at
least gross a n d systematic g o v e r n m e n t - i m p o s e d o r e n d o r s e d denials
of h u m a n rights, such as the imposition of a p a r t h e i d o r g o v e r n m e n t -
sanctioned genocide, may directly violate C h a r t e r obligations. Many
of the m o r e specific h u m a n rights conventions have been widely rati-
fied. For example, by the e n d of 1991, o n e h u n d r e d o r m o r e coun-
tries had become parties to the C o v e n a n t o n Civil a n d Political Rights,
the Covenant on Economic, Social a n d Cultural Rights, t h e Con-
vention o n the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the
Genocide Convention, the Convention relating to the Status of R e f u -
gees, the S u p p l e m e n t a r y Convention o n t h e Abolition of Slavery, a n d
the Convention o n the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against W o m e n ; over 160 countries a r e parties to the Fourth Geneva
Convention on the Protection of Civilian Persons in T i m e s of War. 3
A second source of international h u m a n rights law is international
custom. In o r d e r to establish the existence of a rule of customary in-
ternational law, it is necessary to d e m o n s t r a t e a widespread practice
by states c o n f o r m i n g to the alleged rule, t o g e t h e r with evidence that
they have followed this practice because they believe that they a r e
u n d e r a normative obligation to comply with that rule. If a particular
h u m a n rights rule has become part of customary international law,
this can be especially u s e f u l to practitioners seeking to advance h u -
m a n rights objectives, since customary international law is generally
binding u p o n all nations, without r e g a r d to w h e t h e r they have ex-
pressly consented. However, the concept of customary law is some-
what technical, a n d p r o v i n g the existence of a customary rule can be
difficult.
T h e 1987 Restatement (Third) of The Foreign Relations Law of The
United States takes the position that at least certain basic h u m a n rights
are now protected by customary international law. Section 702 of the
Restatement provides, "A state violates international law if, as a m a t t e r
of state policy, it practices, encourages, o r c o n d o n e s (a) genocide,
(b) slavery o r slave trade, (c) the m u r d e r or causing the d i s a p p e a r a n c e
of individuals, (d) t o r t u r e o r o t h e r cruel, i n h u m a n o r d e g r a d i n g treat-
m e n t o r p u n i s h m e n t , (e) p r o l o n g e d arbitrary detention, (f) systematic
racial discrimination, o r (g) a consistent p a t t e r n of gross violations of
internationally recognized h u m a n rights."
Even if particular international h u m a n rights i n s t r u m e n t s such as
treaties or declarations are not legally b i n d i n g on a particular state
(either because it has not ratified the treaty or because the particular
rule is not recognized as customary law), such instruments are likely

to possess a moral or political force that may be useful in persuading
government officials to observe human rights standards. For example,
signatories of the Helsinki Final Act have regularly condemned each
other's violations of human rights despite the fact that the Final Act is
not a legally binding treaty. Moreover, national courts may be respon-
sive to arguments that domestic law should be interpreted consistently
with international human rights standards, particularly in cases where
an inconsistent interpretation, even if not technically a breach of in-
ternational law, might nevertheless be politically embarrassing.
While international law has traditionally been concerned primarily
with relations among states, it is becoming widely recognized that
individuals are the real subjects and beneficiaries of international
human rights law. Individuals may have access to assert the rights
granted to them under international law in various ways.
First and most important, states may incorporate international ob-
ligations expressed in human rights treaties into their domestic law;
the rights can then be invoked directly by individuals as part of that
state's internal law. Whether and how such incorporation takes place
depends on each state's domestic law, and states differ in this respect.
Under the basic law of some countries, a ratified treaty automatically
becomes part of domestic law; in others, specific implementing legis-
lation is required to create any domestic effect.
Second, some human rights treaties establish standing for individ-
uals and/or NGOs to bring complaints directly before international
bodies. This is the case, for example, if a nation has acceded to ar-
ticle 25 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the American
Convention on Human Rights, or the Optional Protocol to the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Finally, a few treaties, such as the Genocide Convention and the
Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of
Apartheid, impose individual criminal responsibility on government
officials who violate the human rights protected by these conventions.
They also may create procedures under which these responsibilities
can be directly enforced by state parties against such individuals.
How Can International Human Rights

Obligations Be Enforced?
Implementation is a key problem in making the system of interna-
tional protection of human rights effective, and it has proved difficult
and troublesome. The jurisdiction of international courts depends
upon the consent of the states involved, and few states have given
such consent with respect to disputes involving human rights. (A
notable exception is the consent of all parties to the European Con-
vention on Human Rights to the jurisdiction of the European Court
of Human Rights; over a dozen states also have consented to the ju-
risdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.) Moreover,
international courts are generally open only to nations and not to in-
dividuals, although Protocol No. 9 to the European Convention will
give individual complainants direct access to the European Court,
when it enters into force. Finally, even if international courts are in
some cases given jurisdiction to render judgments against nations vio-
lating human rights obligations, there is no international police force
to enforce such orders. Consequently, international human rights law,
like all international law, must rely heavily on voluntary compliance
by states, buttressed by such moral and other influence as other coun-
tries are prepared to exert.
One way of examining enforcement or implementation options is
in terms of the "level" at which enforcement or implementation
occurs. Thus, international human rights obligations can be imple-
mented through action within the national system of the state con-
cerned, by other states in the course of international relations, or by
international bodies.
Once again, the easiest and most effective way to implement human
rights is through action within each country's own legal system. If
domestic law provides an effective system of remedies for violations
of international human rights obligations, the authority and weight
of a nation's own legal system can be mobilized in support of compli-
ance with international norms. Most human rights treaties require
that parties incorporate relevant obligations into their domestic law
and that they provide appropriate local remedies. This, in turn, pro-
vides the rationale for the common requirement that domestic reme-
dies be exhausted before an international body will investigate a
complaint of human rights violations. Human rights treaties also fre-
quently require that nations make periodic reports on their compli-
ance with their treaty obligations, including reference to how these
obligations are incorporated into domestic law, to international insti-
tutions overseeing the treaties.
Enforcement can also occur at the interstate level. Thus, one state
may complain directly to another state concerning the latter's alleged
breach of human rights obligations and can bring diplomatic pressure
to bear in an attempt to influence the other country to cease such
violations. Such pressure might include traditional "quiet diplomacy,"
public criticism, or even denial of military and economic assistance.
Enforcement by international organizations occurs through a vari-

ety of international forums in which complaints of human rights vio-
lations can be raised by states or individuals, most of which are
discussed in greater detail in this book. These include regional and
global procedures which offer avenues for interstate and/or indi-
vidual complaints to be filed. Many international institutions, e.g., U N
bodies such as the General Assembly, Security Council, and Com-
mission on Human Rights, consider human rights matters on their
own initiative without any formal complaint mechanism.
Another way of looking at enforcement and implementation options
is in terms of the party which can institute a complaint. Depending
on the procedure invoked, this may be a private individual or group,
a state, or an international organization or agency.
An effective system of international human rights law rests primar-
ily on the concept of enforcement by states. In theory, when a state
violates its international human rights obligations, it will be called to
account by other states. In practice, however, this rarely occurs. States
have generally been reluctant to antagonize friendly nations by criti-
cizing their human rights behavior; they have typically been willing to
raise human rights issues only with respect to either their enemies or
certain politically unpopular states, such as South Africa and Israel.
While exceptions may be found—such as interstate complaints filed
within the European system by Ireland against the United Kingdom
and by five states against Turkey—even gross violations of human
rights, such as those which occurred in Uganda under Idi Amin and
in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, have often been ignored.
Many have argued that, in view of the political factors which affect
the willingness of states to criticize each other's human rights conduct,
any system that is overly reliant on state-to-state complaints as the
means of enforcement is almost certain to be illusory and ineffective.
One alternative is to rely on an international organization or insti-
tutions, such as the U N Commission on Human Rights, to raise hu-
man rights issues. O f course, the issue must somehow be brought to
the attention or placed on the agenda of the international organi-
zation, and this almost invariably requires that the matter be raised by
a state or group of states. Once it has jurisdiction over the matter, the
body may be empowered to initiate a public or private investigation
or take other action to encourage respect for human rights. Since
international organizations are composed of states, however, political
considerations will remain foremost, and an influential country or re-
gional group can often block any effective action. Certain proposals
aimed at giving the United Nations and other international organi-
zations more independence and initiative, such as establishing a U N
High Commissioner for Human Rights, have been blocked by coun-

tries fearful of the potential scope of more independent international
action.
Another alternative is to permit human rights issues to be raised
by private individuals or groups. Where human rights obligations
are incorporated into domestic law, or where domestic law links for-
eign policy to human rights performance, individuals or groups may
raise relevant human rights issues in national courts or agencies. They
may also attempt to influence national legislatures, foreign relations
ministries, or other agencies that either implement human rights ob-
ligations domestically or are supposed to encourage compliance by
other countries. Institutions within the government apparatus with
special concerns and responsibilities regarding human rights can be
helpful in providing a focus and accessible forum for such efforts. Of
course, certain treaties establish procedures under which individuals
or groups may file complaints directly.
A third way of looking at enforcement options is in terms of the
types of enforcement techniques that can be employed in an attempt
to secure compliance with human rights obligations. For example, a
private individual or group may seek a judgment or decision by a
national court or administrative agency, an international judgment,
or the establishment of an international fact-finding body. A state may
employ techniques ranging from "quiet diplomacy" to public con-
demnation, trade embargoes, cessation of diplomatic relations, or
perhaps even the use of force through so-called "humanitarian inter-
vention." International organizations may similarly employ a wide
range of enforcement devices including the use of "good offices," dip-
lomatic persuasion, public exposure and criticism, expulsion of the
offending state from the international organization, imposition of
the trade and diplomatic sanctions, or, under some circumstances, the
collective use of armed force.
Problems and Prospects

Despite the rapid growth of international human rights law during
the last forty-five years, massive and shocking violations of fundamen-
tal human rights continue to occur in many countries, and progress
in achieving greater respect for these rights has been sporadic and
slow. Some commentators are skeptical as to the potential effective-
ness of international law and institutions in promoting human rights
objectives, and a number of basic questions remain unanswered. 4
First, what is meant by human rights? Can over 160 different coun-
tries with different cultures, political systems, and ideologies, and at

different stages of economic development, really hope to agree on the
rights that ought to be protected through international rules and in-
stitutions, or on the priorities among them when these rights conflict
with one another? Differences in perspective have emerged in the
past, for example, between Western developed nations, which have
generally emphasized the importance of civil and political rights, and
the developing and socialist nations, which have generally empha-
sized economic and social rights. More recently, however, there has
been growing agreement that human rights must be considered in
their entirety and that civil, political, economic, social, and cultural
rights are closely intertwined. Some nations have pressed for greater
recognition for "collective" human rights, such as the right of self-
determination, the right to development, and the right to peace; oth-
ers believe that "collective rights" are ill-defined and inconsistent with
individual human rights. There is growing concern that international
organizations have tended to label too many aspirations as "human
rights" and that this proliferation may diminish the concept of human
rights as a claim of individual freedom and dignity against the au-
thority of the state.
Second, can one expect government officials to support human
rights objectives and efforts impartially, even when this poses foreign
policy risks, or will they only give such support selectively, when it
serves what is perceived as their country's more immediate foreign
policy interests? It is apparent that many nations apply a double stan-
dard in their attitudes toward human rights, harshly condemning vio-
lations by political enemies but ignoring equally serious violations on
the part of nations with which they wish to maintain good relations.
For example, critics attacked the Reagan administration's attempt to
distinguish for purposes of U.S. human rights policy between so-
called "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" regimes as, in effect, the use
of such a double standard. Similarly, the United Nations focused its
early human rights efforts principally on problems involving South
Africa and the Israeli occupied territories, while paying little or no
attention to equally or more serious violations in other countries. If
governments do not accept the basic moral premises of international
human rights but only pay them lip service, how can international
human rights law ever work?
Third, can one hope through international law and institutions to
affect the ways governments behave toward their own citizens, or do
the roots of repression, discrimination, and other denials of human
rights lie in deeper and more complex political, social, and economic
problems? And if, as some believe, humanity faces an increasingly

uphill struggle against the relentless pressures of increasing popu-
lation, resource depletion, environmental degradation, and economic
scarcity, can one ever hope to reach conditions of economic well-being
in which social competition will become less intense and human rights
can flourish?
These problems must be taken seriously. It is neither realistic nor
useful to pretend that international human rights law can produce an
immediate change in the way human beings and their governments
have behaved for millennia or to promise any quick and dramatic
improvement in the human condition.
But there is some basis for optimism. For example, it is clear that
the concept of international human rights has taken firm root and
acquired its own dynamic. Even if governments would prefer not to
treat international human rights seriously, ordinary people in coun-
tries throughout the world clearly do take them seriously. Even when
governments employ international human rights concepts hypocriti-
cally and for selfish political purposes, their actions serve to reinforce
human rights principles and establish important precedents. Interna-
tional human rights institutions have acquired their own momentum,
expanding their human rights activities in ways that governments
have found difficult to curb. At the very least, international human
rights law has probably exerted some check on government actions
and kept matters from getting worse. Indeed, if international efforts
and activities can succeed in ratcheting respect for and observance
of human rights gradually upwards, even if only incrementally, the
game will be worth the candle.
The international human rights movement will continue to encoun-
ter reverses as well as advances, and dedication, persistence, and
much more work is needed. Some of the directions such work might
take include:
• increasing efforts to embed international human rights norms

more firmly within national legal systems and to sensitize lawyers,
judges, and other officials to the relevance and usefulness of in-
ternational human rights law as a tool to advance human rights
within national societies;
• strengthening existing international institutions, such as the vari-
ous human rights commissions and courts, by developing and re-
vising their procedures and utilizing them more fully;
• enhancing the role and influence of NGOs involved in the pro-
motion of human rights and increasing their access to national and
international human rights institutions and processes;
• developing new national a n d international h u m a n rights insti-

tutions, such as an i n d e p e n d e n t U N H i g h Commissioner f o r H u -
m a n Rights a n d regional h u m a n rights a r r a n g e m e n t s in the A r a b
World a n d Asia;
• learning m o r e about the root causes of discrimination a n d intoler-
ance, in o r d e r to devise better ways of trying to eliminate t h e m ;
• emphasizing the d e v e l o p m e n t of n o n b i n d i n g rules, s t a n d a r d s a n d
model codes, as well as h u m a n rights education, training, a n d tech-
nical assistance;
• developing better indicators f o r m e a s u r i n g a n d m o n i t o r i n g the ob-
servance of particular h u m a n rights a n d better fact-finding mecha-
nisms a n d techniques with which to d e t e r m i n e w h e t h e r states a r e
complying with particular h u m a n rights obligations a n d w h e t h e r
things are getting worse o r better;
• giving increased attention, not only to state-supported discrimi-
nation against ethnic, religious, a n d ideological minorities, b u t also
to o t h e r massive a n d u r g e n t h u m a n rights issues, such as pervasive
h u n g e r a n d disease (particularly a m o n g children); widespread a n d
deeply-entrenched discrimination against w o m e n ; the absence of
f r e e elections a n d representative g o v e r n m e n t s in m a n y countries;
r e c u r r e n t violations of h u m a n rights a n d h u m a n i t a r i a n law in
international a n d civil conflict; a n d the c o n t i n u i n g p r o b l e m of
refugees;
• e x p a n d i n g cooperation a n d coordination a m o n g the various hu-
m a n rights institutions to avoid inconsistency a n d unnecessary d u -
plication of e f f o r t ;
• developing a broadly acceptable theory of the relationship between
h u m a n rights a n d economic d e v e l o p m e n t , including practical pro-
g r a m s capable of realizing a n d a c c o m m o d a t i n g both objectives;
• achieving wider dissemination of h u m a n rights ideas a n d docu-
mentation a m o n g people in every c o u n t r y a n d insuring access by
individuals to national a n d international institutions to seek redress
f o r violations;
• a t t e m p t i n g to depoliticize h u m a n rights questions, so as to increase
the willingness of g o v e r n m e n t s to address such issues fairly a n d o n
their own merits in international f o r u m s ; a n d
• p e r s u a d i n g g o v e r n m e n t officials that h u m a n rights are a n a p p r o -
priate a n d legitimate concern of national foreign policy, not only
because s u p p o r t f o r h u m a n f r e e d o m a n d dignity is "decent" a n d
"right," but also because it is in each nation's pragmatic long-term
national interest to acquire the respect a n d f r i e n d s h i p of o t h e r
nations a n d to achieve a world in which people can live securely
a n d in peace.
In many cases, the day-to-day problems involved in work in the

field of international human rights law will be undramatic, and
broader goals and issues may not be apparent. But practitioners will
nonetheless be sharing in an important and exciting enterprise, albeit
one whose ultimate success remains still distant and elusive.
Notes
1. A list of ratifications to major human rights treaties is continued in Ap-

pendix E.
2. See chap. 11.
3. It might be noted the United States has a singularly poor record of rati-
fying these human rights treaties. Specifically, as of January 1991, the United
States is now a party to only the following treaties [in addition to the UN and
OAS Charters]: the Slavery Convention of 1926 and the Protocol amending
that Convention; the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery,
the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; the four
Geneva Conventions of 1949 relating to armed conflict; the Protocol Re-
lating to the Status of Refugees; the UN Convention on Political Rights of
Women; the Inter-American Convention on the Granting of Political Rights
to Women; the Genocide Convention; and the Convention against Torture.
The United States has ratified the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights only
in 1992; the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Conven-
tion on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the American
Convention on Human Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women have been signed by the United
States and are pending before the U.S. Senate.
4. These questions are discussed further in R. Bilder, Rethinking Interna-
tional Human Rights: Some Basic Questions, 1969 Wis. L. Rev. 171, reprinted
in 2 Hum. Rls.J. 557 (1969).
Chapter 2
Implementing Human Rights:
An Overview of Strategies
and Procedures
Hurst Hannum
As the preceding chapter indicates, international human rights norms

are drawn from a wide range of sources. Whether "hard" or "soft"
law, binding or non-binding, each set of norms and principles contrib-
utes to the evolving definition of international human rights.
The chapters which follow describe in detail the many mechanisms
available to promote, monitor, and enforce human rights law, ranging
from the national to the global. Some of these mechanisms are con-
cerned with specific categories of rights; others are limited geographi-
cally. The present chapter will address some of the considerations that
should go into selecting which procedure or procedures to use under
various circumstances. It also will discuss various political or tactical
concerns of which human rights advocates should be aware.
NGO Mandates and Strategies

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may be found in all regions
of the world. They range from truly mass-based international orga-
nizations such as Amnesty International, whose members and regular
donors now surpass one million persons and which has established
volunteer groups in over seventy countries, to one-person offices cre-
ated to monitor the human rights situation in a single country. While
many human rights lawyers and other activists provide services to vic-
tims on an individual basis, most tend to work in cooperation with one
or more NGOs.
The goals or mandates of NGOs also range across the entire spec-
trum of internationally recognized human rights. An NGO's defi-
nition of its primary aims will have a profound impact in determining
which procedures may be in the NGO's interest to invoke.
The first significant distinction among NGOs is their substantive

focus: is an NGO's mandate general and universal, or is it limited
either geographically or substantively? Many well-known NGOs have
found it more efficient to focus on only a narrow range of human
rights, in order to develop greater expertise or to address more effi-
ciently those rights which it may deem to be the most important. For
example, Amnesty International is concerned with rights of personal
integrity, including protection against physical ill-treatment, arbitrary
detention, unfair trials, and imposition of the death penalty; the man-
date of Defense for Children International is clearly expressed in its
name; the London-based group, Article 19, takes its name from ar-
ticle 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is con-
cerned with freedom of expression. Other NGOs—such as Human
Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists, International Hu-
man Rights Law Group, and Fédération Internationale des Droits de
l'Homme—choose not to limit their substantive concerns and take up
issues spanning all of the rights in the Universal Declaration of Hu-
man Rights and other international instruments.
Many NGOs were created to respond to a specific concern or to the
situation in a particular country. Others have adopted a regional fo-
cus, seeking to maximize available expertise (including linguistic
ability) or to utilize existing regional mechanisms for the protection
of human rights. Such NGOs obviously do not need to concern them-
selves with regional institutions outside the area of their concern, al-
though UN or other global mechanisms may still be useful.
Perhaps every human rights NGO in the world is understaffed and
underfunded, and each must make almost daily decisions as to which
violations it can address and which it must ignore because of limited
time and resources. Such decisions are often strategic rather than
ideological, and one of the most difficult tasks faced by the governing
boards and staffs of NGOs is to develop criteria which can help deter-
mine which issues they can and should address. Should individual
cases be given priority over more general human rights concerns?
Should a kind of "triage" be exercised, pursuant to which only those
cases in which there is the greatest chance that NGO action will have
real impact are accepted? Should more "serious" cases be dealt with
before less vital ones? Can choices be based on distinctions among
categories of rights, such as civil and political rights, on the one hand,
and economic, social, and cultural rights, on the other? Should larger
societal issues which may encourage human rights violations be ad-
dressed, such as the unequal distribution of wealth, or should an
NGO restrict itself to the violations which result from such situations?
It is almost impossible to adopt a definitive policy that responds to
Overview of Strategies and Procedures 21
these questions in every instance, and most NGOs find themselves

addressing many different kinds of violations, which may require dif-
ferent tactics, at the same time. Individual cases are often urgent, and
they serve as powerful illustrations of the existence of larger human
rights problems. One cannot easily judge the chances for success in
every instance, and it is often those cases which seem most hopeless
that are the most compelling. In many instances, the limited amount of
information available, linguistic competence, and financial resources
may prevent an NGO from taking up even a deserving case in a thor-
ough manner, although some response to urgent appeals will almost
always be forthcoming.
As noted at the end of this chapter, it is essential for a human rights
NGO both to be and to appear to be nonpartisan and nonideological.
When an NGO deals with situations in a wide number of countries,
decisions regarding future initiatives should include consideration of
the geopolitical or cultural balance reflected in the NGO's work as a
whole. For example, an NGO which purports to monitor compliance
with the Helsinki Final Act adopted by the Conference on Security
and Cooperation in Europe should not focus only on eastern Europe;
an organization concerned with religious intolerance might wish to
examine the situations in Ireland and Israel, for example, as well as
that in Iran. An NGO might decide to investigate North Korea or
Albania precisely because information about such countries is difficult
to obtain, and, as a result, they may have received disproportionately
less attention from human rights bodies than is warranted.
Such considerations might seem overly Machiavellian, but they are
part of the real world of daily NGO activities. Although most NGOs
do not have the leisure to examine such questions in the abstract—
appeals for help arrive daily, and decisions about assistance must be
made relatively quickly—they should not allow their actions to be de-
termined simply by whatever appeal arrives first.
International human rights law is directed to states and govern-
ments; they have the responsibility to ensure that rights are protected
from violation either by government officials or by private individ-
uals acting with the acquiescence or complicity of governments. T h e
increased activities of armed opposition groups in a number of coun-
tries, however, has given rise to accusations of "human rights viola-
tions" being directed against these nongovernmental actors, as well as
against governments.
Many NGOs continue to adopt the view that their concern is only
with the action (or inaction) of governments; killings and other as-
saults by nongovernmental forces are crimes under domestic law and
should be treated as such. Other groups, particularly when dealing
with situations in which violent conflicts are long-standing (e.g., El

Salvador, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka) choose to address " h u m a n rights vio-
lations" by guerrillas in at least a summary fashion. In such situations,
the humanitarian law of armed conflict is clearly relevant, although
the precise scope of its application often may be confusing. It is almost
certainly inappropriate for an NGO to ignore the existence of a con-
flict entirely, if only because some conflicts may justify derogations
f r o m or limitations on rights that would otherwise be impermissible.
At the same time, however, h u m a n rights law is distinct f r o m the law
relating to armed conflict, and one must be careful to utilize the legal
arguments which are most protective of individual rights in the par-
ticular circumstances.
These questions of mandate and long-term strategy arise most fre-
quently in the early stages of an NGO's existence, although they may
usefully be reviewed every few years. Even the most well-established
NGOs need to reassess fact-finding and other tactics on the basis of
experience, and mandates may be e x p a n d e d or restricted d e p e n d i n g
on the changing nature of h u m a n rights violations in the world. Some
of these issues are addressed in greater detail in the works on NGOs
listed in the Bibliographic Essay in Appendix A.
Domestic Activities
Redressing Human Rights Violations in One's Own Country

If there has not been a wholesale breakdown in the rule of law in a
country, there are a n u m b e r of domestic initiatives that an N G O can
undertake to promote h u m a n rights or to change national policies
which appear to conflict with international norms.
Apart f r o m its impact on the jurisdiction of international bodies,
the invocation of formal legal procedures, such as habeas corpus or am-
paro proceedings or civil suits to challenge government acts, is a first
step which should not be ignored where there is a regularly function-
ing judicial system. As discussed in chapter 13, there also may be ways
to implement international h u m a n rights norms directly t h r o u g h the
domestic/national legal system, although this possibility depends on
the domestic law of each country.
Nonjudicial administrative appeals also should be attempted, if nec-
essary by challenging the exercise of executive discretion in particular
cases. Attempts should first be m a d e to persuade a government to
change its rules and policies, before trying to force it to change
through litigation.
An often overlooked, but vitally important, avenue of legal and po-

litical redress is the legislative branch of government, particularly where
the system of government gives the legislature a power base separate
f r o m the executive. In the United States, for example, most h u m a n
rights initiatives in the 1970s (and later) originated in the U.S. Con-
gress, and many significant pieces of legislation were adopted over
the opposition of the executive branch. Legislation also may be re-
quired to r e f o r m judicial procedures or comply with a country's obli-
gations to promote economic and social rights.
Legislative hearings or fact-finding investigations provide f o r u m s
in which h u m a n rights violations can be publicized and pressure
brought to bear on governments to halt them. T h e parliamentary im-
munity enjoyed by legislators in many countries may enable them to
speak out more forthrightly, and NGOs often have much closer ties
to the legislative than to the executive branch of government.
Urging the government to ratify international treaties concerning hu-
man rights also can be an effective tool both to educate the public
about h u m a n rights and to increase the substantive protections avail-
able to a country's citizens. T h e international oversight that accom-
panies most h u m a n rights treaties additionally can provide a useful
(if limited) potential check on government actions, as discussed in
chapter 10.
T h e importance of the mass media cannot be over-emphasized. Al-
though one most often thinks of exposing h u m a n rights violations in
the press, the media also can be extremely helpful in educating the
public (and politicians) about h u m a n rights issues. When h u m a n
rights norms are invoked by a government to justify its criticism of
foreign regimes, the media can legitimately ask why international hu-
man rights norms are not also adhered to at home.
All successful h u m a n rights NGOs have developed good personal
contacts with journalists, who may provide information to NGOs and
serve as a means of making N G O information public. In addition,
NGOs and individuals should attempt to gain direct access to the
media where that is possible, through letters to the editor, short
"op-ed" pieces, soliciting radio and television interviews, and similar
techniques.
Domestic Activities Aimed at Promoting Human Rights

in Other Countries
Governments and the public increasingly view h u m a n rights as a le-
gitimate issue of foreign policy, and seeking to influence the foreign
policy (including foreign economic assistance) of one's own country
can be an effective means of promoting human rights in another

country. Many Western foreign ministries now include specific bu-
reaus or divisions dedicated to monitoring human rights, and foreign
policy pronouncements from governments around the world fre-
quently cite human rights concerns as influencing political decisions.
Members of the European Community, the Nordic countries, and the
United States have indicated that foreign assistance will be condi-
tioned, in varying degrees, on the human rights record of a recipient
country; Japan is reportedly considering adopting a similar policy.
Few countries have gone as far as the United States, where the ad-
ministration is required by law to prepare a public annual report on
the state of human rights in all countries. However, it should be pos-
sible in many countries to provide information informally to a foreign
ministry regarding the human rights situation in another country
with which there are close economic or political relations. In addition,
NGOs should demand that every government pay greater attention
to human rights considerations in formulating its foreign policy.
Abstract human rights appeals are less likely to receive serious at-
tention than are more specific appeals regarding an already newswor-
thy issue. NGOs should find a "hook" to which their human rights
concerns can be attached, such as the visit of a foreign dignitary or an
increased flow of refugees from a country in which human rights are
being violated. If an immigrant or other group in one country is eth-
nically or culturally linked to a group which is being victimized in
another country, "foreign" human rights concerns may suddenly ac-
quire much greater importance in domestic politics.
Countries which systematically violate human rights also persecute
human rights activists and rigidly control access to their territory by
the media. Thus, exile or other groups in foreign countries are often
the best source of information on human rights abuses. National
NGOs can assist these groups in contacting local (and international)
media.
There is a danger, however, that human rights issues may become
overly politicized if they are too closely entwined with foreign policy.
The United States favored friendly "authoritarian" regimes over Com-
munist "totalitarian" regimes during the Reagan administration; the
U.S.S.R. hypocritically promoted economic and social rights while vio-
lating political rights; and many Third World countries have excused
gross human rights violations by their neighbors by invoking spurious
arguments of interference with national "sovereignty."
Nevertheless, the mobilization of world public opinion against hu-
man rights violators almost necessarily includes influencing the politi-
cal decisions of governments. So-called "quiet diplomacy," in which a
government may privately raise individual cases or larger human

rights issues in a bilateral diplomatic setting, can be an important tool.
Public expressions of concern over alleged human rights violations
may lay the groundwork for a government later to support multi-
lateral initiatives in the United Nations or elsewhere. But while hu-
man rights NGOs should take "political" considerations into account
when they decide which situations are most likely to receive attention
at a given time, they must always be conscious of the need to deal with
human rights in the most objective, nonpartisan manner possible.
International Procedures
International treaties and human rights bodies have proliferated in
the past decade, and anyone seeking to invoke international human
rights procedures is presented with a bewildering array of choices.
This section will summarize some of the most significant differences
among the various international mechanisms available; succeeding
chapters provide more detailed information on the substantive and
procedural requirements of each option. 1
Individual Cases
Perhaps the most crucial distinction to be kept in mind when survey-
ing the various procedures is that between the protection of the rights
of a particular individual and the promotion of broader human rights
concerns within a particular country. While there is obviously a close
relationship between the two in most instances, the international com-
munity has developed different mechanisms to address each.
When the concern is, for example, to release an individual f r o m
prison, to protect her f r o m torture, to allow a banned newspaper to
resume publication, or to secure a family's right to emigrate, the pri-
mary motivation must be to protect or secure the rights of the indi-
vidual victim. In such a context, a h u m a n rights advocate or NGO
should not worry about setting precedents, proving the "guilt" of a
government, or acquiring publicity, except insofar as any of these
steps may help the individual concerned.
T h e danger in focusing exclusively on an individual case is that a
government may attempt to buy off an NGO by acceding to its de-
mands, at least in part. T h e bargain may take the form of an early
release or permission to leave a country, as long as the NGO ceases its
public condemnation or agrees to discuss the problem confidentially.
Such a "bargain" may be more insidious, if governments threaten to
persecute victims to an even greater extent if international publicity

continues.
Under such circumstances, the primary loyalty of an NGO must be
to the individual victim. The victim may refuse the bargain, for ex-
ample, by refusing to recant an unpopular political belief or even re-
fusing release while others remain imprisoned. On the other hand, a
victim may understandably choose to accept a government's offer of
release, exile, or compensation, even though such a settlement of his
or her case may undermine broader efforts to redress human rights
violations in a particular country. However, this must be the victim's
decision, and an NGO should consider itself bound to honor that
decision.
Nevertheless, an NGO should not hesitate to apprise its individual
client of the implications of a particular settlement or offer, particu-
larly if the situation is not life-threatening or if formal legal proceed-
ings have been invoked. The European and inter-American human
rights systems require approval of any "friendly settlement" by the
appropriate international body, to ensure that it is based on respect
for human rights; an NGO can play a similar role in ensuring that a
victim is not tricked or coerced by a government.
Exhausting domestic remedies
The requirement that an individual (or NGO) exhaust all domestic

remedies before invoking international procedures is common to
nearly every international mechanism discussed in this book. This
should come as no surprise, for a state must be given the first oppor-
tunity to redress those occasional human rights violations which occur
in every country.
This requirement must be fulfilled only when the domestic reme-
dies are real, not illusory. If theoretical remedies are ineffective or
inadequate for any reason—such as inordinate delay injudicial pro-
ceedings, lack of an independent judiciary, clear judicial precedent
which upholds the challenged action, or limits on the judiciary's juris-
diction which prevents the courts from interfering with executive
branch actions—a petitioner need not go through the motions of fil-
ing useless domestic proceedings.
Not only is exhaustion of domestic remedies normally required be-
fore international procedures can be invoked, but, where they do ex-
ist, domestic remedies are likely to be faster and more effective than
the political or moral exhortations of an international body. Indeed,
it may be possible to separate an individual case from broader com-
plaints about human rights abuses, and NGOs should always consider
whether a nonpolitical domestic approach might be more persuasive

in a particular case.
Humanitarian appeals
A purely humanitarian approach, as opposed to one which is accu-
satory or emphasizes the broader political context in which an in-
dividual violation occurs, can be faster and more effective at the
international level. A humanitarian approach involves direct contact
with regional or international bodies, without attempting to fulfill the
requirements for a formal petition or communication. T h e goal is to
protect the victim from immediate danger (e.g., torture or execution),
without regard to the underlying causes or formal governmental re-
sponsibility for a violation of human rights.
There are several mechanisms which can respond to humanitarian
appeals:
• T h e secretariats of the Inter-American Commission on Human

Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights have the
authority to request (although not to order) that a government take
action to safeguard the human rights of an individual on whose
behalf they have been approached. 2 T h e mere fact that an inquiry
is instituted by an inter-governmental body may deter a govern-
ment from physically assaulting, executing, or deporting someone
in custody, although there is no guarantee that this will occur. If
the appeal is successful in preventing immediate harm, the case can
be continued by initiating a formal application.
Similarly, staff members who serve international bodies such as
the Human Rights Committee, U N E S C O , and others may infor-
mally be able to contact a government in urgent situations, al-
though this practice is perhaps less well developed than it is in the
regional bodies.
• T h e so-called "thematic" rapporteurs and working groups estab-
lished by the UN Commission on Human Rights are specifically
authorized to take "effective action" in response to individual com-
plaints, and they should be among the first international entities
contacted in urgent cases. 3 At present, there is a rapporteur or
working group whose mandate extends to disappearances; sum-
mary or arbitrary executions; torture; arbitrary detention; and re-
ligious intolerance. These bodies cannot investigate or pronounce
on violations, but their humanitarian functions have become in-
creasingly accepted; all can be contacted through the UN Centre
for Human Rights in Geneva.
Country-specific rapporteurs appointed by the Commission on

Human Rights also can be contacted privately, although many gov-
ernments have refused to cooperate with such rapporteurs, and
they tend to have less immediate influence than the thematic rap-
porteurs. T h e one exception to this observation may be when a
rapporteur is about to conduct an on-site investigation in a country,
during which time the government concerned may be much more
receptive to appeals from the rapporteur on behalf of a particular
individual.
• The International Committee of the Red Cross is perhaps the best-
known humanitarian organization in the world, but its mandate is
quite limited. In situations of armed conflict, however, Red Cross
representatives may make confidential approaches to governments
to search for missing persons, visit prisons and detention camps,
and otherwise seek to alleviate individual suffering and provide
information to the families of victims.
Humanitarian appeals also can be made by one government to
another in the context of bilateral diplomacy. Particularly if the
inquiring government is perceived as having friendly relations with
the target government, it may be easier for the latter to take posi-
tive action with respect to an individual case than to anger its ally
by refusing to cooperate.
Invoking formal international procedures
Just as the domestic lawyer's ultimate threat is "I'll see you in court,"
the international human rights activist is most likely to invoke formal
international procedures as a last resort. While many procedures can
and should be invoked at the same time that other avenues of redress
are being explored, they should rarely be the first option considered.
In addition to whatever specific procedural hurdles must be over-
come with respect to each mechanism, all the international proce-
dures share a serious problem of delay. It is not uncommon for it to
take three or four years for a case to be finally decided, although
initial hearings and/or decisions on admissibility may be made within
a few months to a year or two.
At the same time, however, the submission of a formal communi-
cation and, in particular, its transmittal to the government concerned
may be an effective tool in itself in encouraging a government to take
action. In addition, full consideration of a case may lead to much
greater publicity and pressure on a government to change its prac-
tices, especially when the complaint raises an issue of concern to more
people than just the individual petitioner. When legislation or policies
are changed, the impact of a formal procedure will be much greater

than when a particular complaint is resolved on an individual, hu-
manitarian basis.
Another problem with international procedures is that their de-
cisions are not legally binding on governments, with the exception of
judgments rendered by the inter-American and European courts of
human rights. Only such judicial forums have the power to order that
compensation be paid to victims of human rights violations. The dis-
tinction between legally binding and advisory opinions may not always
have great practical significance, however, and many governments
are willing to take the action recommended by an international body
even if the recommendation is not obligatory.
Of course, much depends on whether there is either a good super-
visory mechanism to follow-up on even non-binding recommen-
dations or effective publicity designed to pressure a government to
abide by an international finding. T h e systematic supervision by, for
example, the International Labour Organization, is more likely to en-
courage compliance than is the mere issuance or "views" by the Hu-
man Rights Committee. 4
The right of an individual to invoke most formal international com-
plaint procedures must be specifically accepted by individual states;
unfortunately, the geographical scope of many treaties remains lim-
ited. All members of the Organization of American States fall within
the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,
and all but the most recent members of the Council of Europe have
accepted the optional right of individual petition under the European
Convention on Human Rights.5 However, only 53 of the parties to
the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights have accepted the right of
individual petition under the Optional Protocol; only 14 states rec-
ognize the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination to receive individual complaints; and there is no effec-
tive regional mechanism to hear individual cases in Africa, Asia, east-
ern and central Europe, or the Pacific.
Procedures which have been adopted under the inherent constitu-
tional authority of international organizations—such as the UNESCO
procedure, 6 the procedures to protect freedom of association devel-
oped by the ILO, 7 and the United Nations "1503 procedure" 8 —are
universal, but they do not lead to legally binding judgments and are
restricted to cases falling within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the
organization.
While many mechanisms which consider individual communications
are confidential, judicious use of the media and mobilization of inter-
national public opinion may nevertheless be possible. It is essential to
seek advice from the secretariats of the relevant bodies and from
knowledgeable NGOs or lawyers, in order to determine whether pub-
licity is appropriate in a particular case. The decision to seek or avoid
publicity is a tactical one and may depend on the circumstances of the
particular victim, but the filing of a case should certainly be consid-
ered to be public information.
Large-Scale Human Rights Violations in a Particular Country

An individual petition may be drawn narrowly and need not necessar-
ily impugn widespread government policies. A government which
does not feel that its very existence is being challenged may be more
willing to respond favorably to a humanitarian appeal or comply with
the opinion of an international human rights body, and depoliticizing
a complaint is often a worthwhile tactic in individual cases.
This is not true for actions which seek to redress widespread human
rights abuses or a consistent practice of violations within a country,
Such allegations are inevitably viewed by governments as potentially
dangerous, because they call into question the willingness or ability of
a government to live up to internationally recognized norms and may
even challenge the government's political legitimacy. Under such cir-
cumstances, it is rarely fruitful to depoliticize issues, although NGOs
must still guard against appearing to make ideologically motivated
allegations.
Where the goal is to challenge the overall human rights situation in
a country or the existence of a particular practice, formal interna-
tional procedures are somewhat less important than they may be with
respect to an individual case. It is often possible to increase awareness
of human rights violations and thereby mobilize public pressure to
end them through tactics such as publishing reports, sending fact-
finding missions, and publicizing eyewitness accounts. Invoking for-
mal international mechanisms does not always add much to more
direct methods.
Nevertheless, one of the goals of mobilizing public opinion is to
influence the policies of both foreign governments and international
organizations, and international mechanisms offer the possibility of
increased visibility and greater credibility for NGO efforts. The fact
that a country's human rights situation is even discussed at the inter-
national diplomatic level is in itself a form of pressure, and promoting
that discussion is a primary goal of much NGO activity.
The most notable action that an international body can take is to
initiate an investigation of the human rights situation in a country.
This may be followed or accompanied by a formal resolution, whose
diplomatic phraseology may range from the relatively benign ("not-

ing," or "expressing concern") to outright condemnation. A country
which is the subject of such attention is likely to resist with all the
political and diplomatic weapons available to it.9
The UN Commission on Human Rights is the most important
forum with global jurisdiction which can initiate a country-specific
investigation. 10 Lobbying for appointment of a country-specific rap-
porteur, who will undertake an investigation of the human rights situ-
ation and report back to the Commission the following year, requires
a substantial commitment of time and resources, including physical
presence in Geneva during at least part of the Commission's annual
session. Many NGOs arrive in Geneva having woefully underesti-
mated the political and practical difficulties which they face in mount-
ing such an action, and the coordinated effort of several NGOs is
often required for success, In addition, it is helpful if the human
rights situation is sufficiently serious to have already acquired a cer-
tain notoriety among government representatives on the Commission.
Having the Commission adopt a resolution concerning a specific
country may be marginally easier, but geopolitical considerations will
play a major role in determining how a country votes. For example, a
resolution on human rights in Iraq was adopted by the Commission
only after the outbreak of the 1990-91 Gulf War, and the Chinese
government successfully opposed adoption of any resolution refer-
ring to the 1989 massacres in Tien An Mien Square.
A somewhat less onerous challenge is to try to convince the UN
Commission on Human Rights and its Sub-Commission on Pre-
vention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to launch a
confidential investigation of "situations which appear to reveal a con-
sistent pattern of gross violations of human rights." This procedure,
known as the "1503 procedure" for the resolution which created it in
1970, is described more fully in chapter 4; although its use requires a
substantial effort to gather and present the relevant facts, this should
not be beyond the capability of an NGO which seeks to address mas-
sive human rights violations. The entire procedure is confidential, al-
though the public identification by the Chairman of the Commission
of those countries under consideration does provide a form of public
opprobrium. Although it will rarely be the case, the confidentiality of
the 1503 procedure may even be an advantage in dealing with a rela-
tively receptive government which may be more susceptible to private
than to public pressure, since yielding to confidential diplomatic in-
quiries is less embarrassing than yielding to public pressure or con-
demnation.
The Committee against Torture enjoys a somewhat similar author-
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PAINTING SARONGS.
Peddlers bring to one’s doorway fine Bantam basketry and bales

of the native cotton cloth, or battek, patterned in curious designs that
have been in use from time out of mind. These native art fabrics are
sold at the passers also, and one soon recognizes the conventional
designs, and distinguishes the qualities and merits of these hand-
patterned cottons that constitute the native dress. The sarong, or
skirt, worn by men and women alike, is a strip of cotton two yards
long and one yard deep, which is drawn tightly around the hips, the
fullness gathered in front, and by an adroit twist made so firm that a
belt is not necessary to native wearers. The sarong has always one
formal panel design, which is worn at the front or side, and the rest
of the surface is covered with the intricate ornaments in which native
fancy runs riot. There are geometrical and line combinations, in
which appear the swastika and the curious latticings of central Asia;
others are as bold and natural as anything Japanese; and in others
still, the palm-leaves and quaint animal forms of India and Persia
attest the rival art influences that have swept over these refined,
adaptive, assimilative people. One favorite serpentine pattern
running in diagonal lines does not need explanation in this land of
gigantic worms and writhing crawlers; nor that other pattern where
centipedes and insect forms cover the ground; nor that where the
fronds of cocoa-palm wave, and the strange shapes of mangos,
jacks, and breadfruit are interwoven. The deer and tapir, and the
“hunting-scene” patterns are reserved for native royalty’s exclusive
wear. In village and wayside cottages up-country we afterward
watched men and women painting these cloths, tracing a first outline
in a rich brown waxy dye, which is the foundation and dominant color
in all these batteks. The parts which are to be left white are covered
with wax, and the cloth is dipped in or brushed over with the dye.
This resist, or mordant, must be applied for each color, and the wax
afterwards steamed out in hot water, so that a sarong goes through
many processes and handlings, and is often the work of weeks. The
dyes are applied hot through a little tin funnel of an implement
tapering down to a thin point, which is used like a painter’s brush,
but will give the fine line- and dot-work of a pen-and-ink drawing. The
sarong’s value depends upon the fineness of the drawing, the
elaborateness of the design, and the number of colors employed;
and beginning as low as one dollar, these brilliant cottons, or hand-
painted calico sarongs, increase in price to even twenty or thirty
dollars. The Dutch ladies vie with one another in their sarongs as
much as native women, and their dishabille dress of the early hours
has not always economy to recommend it. The battek also appears
in the slandang, or long shoulder-scarf, which used to match the
sarong and complete the native costume when passed under the
arms and crossed at the back, thus covering the body from the
armpits to the waist. It is still worn knotted over the mother’s
shoulder as a sling or hammock for a child; but Dutch fashion has
imposed the same narrow, tight-sleeved kabaia, the baju, or jacket,
that Dutch women wear with the sarong. The kam kapala, a square
handkerchief tied around men’s heads as a variant of the turban, is
of the same figured battek, and, with the slandang, often exhibits
charming color combinations and intricate Persian designs. When
one conquers his prejudices and associated ideas enough to pay
seemingly fancy prices for these examples of free-hand calico
printing, the taste grows, and he soon shares the native longing for a
sarong of every standard and novel design.
The native silversmiths hammer out good designs in silver relief
for betel- and tobacco-boxes, and exhibit great taste and invention in
belt- and jacket-clasps, and in heavy knobs of hairpins and ear-rings,
that are often made of gold and incrusted over with gems for richer
folk.
There are no historic spots nor show-places of native creation in
Batavia; no kratons, or aloon-aloons, as their palaces and courtyards
are called; and only a sentimental interest for a virtual exile pining in
his own country is attached to the villa of Raden Saleh. This son of
the regent of Samarang was educated in Europe, and lived there for
twenty-three years, developing decided talents as an artist, and
enjoying the friendship of many men of rank and genius on the
Continent, among the latter being Eugène Sue, who is said to have
taken Raden Saleh as model for the Eastern Prince in “The
Wandering Jew.” In Java he found himself sadly isolated from his
own people by his European tastes and habits; and he had little in
common with the coarse, rapacious mynheers whose sole thoughts
were of crops and gulden. “Coffee and sugar, sugar and coffee, are
all that is talked here. It is a dreary atmosphere for an artist,” said
Raden Saleh to D’Almeida, who visited him at Batavia sixty odd
years ago. He has left a monument of his taste in this charming villa,
in a park whose land is now a vegetable-patch, its shady pleasance
a beer-garden and exposition-ground, and the sign “Tu Huur” (“To
Hire”) hung from the royal entrance. The exposition of arts and
industries in these grounds in 1893 was a great event in Java, the
governor-general Van der Wyk opening and closing the fair by
electric signal, and the natives making a particularly interesting
display of their products and crafts.
V
TO THE HILLS
One’s most earnest desire, in the scorch of Batavian noondays and

stifling Batavian nights, is to seek refuge in “the hills”—in the dark-
green groves and forests of the Blue Mountains, that are ranged with
such admirable effect as background when one steams in from the
Java Sea. At Buitenzorg, only forty miles away and seven hundred
and fifty feet above the sea, heat-worn people find refuge in an
entirely different climate, an atmosphere of bracing clearness
tempered to moderate summer’s warmth. Buitenzorg (“without
care”), the Dutch Sans Souci, has been a general refuge and
sanitarium for Europeans, the real seat of government, and the
home of the governor-general for more than a century. It is the pride
and show-place of Java, the great center of its social life, leisure
interests, and attractions. The higher officials and many Batavian
merchants and bankers have homes at Buitenzorg, and residents
from other parts of the island make it their place of recreation and
goal of holiday trips.
Undressed Batavia was just rousing from its afternoon nap, and
the hotel court was surrounded with barefoot guests in battek
pajamas and scant sarongs, a sockless, collarless, unblushing
company, that yawned and stared as we drove away, rejoicing to
leave this Sans Gêne for Sans Souci. The Weltevreden Station, on
the vast Koenig’s Plein, a spacious, stone-floored building, whose
airy halls and waiting- and refreshment-rooms are repeated on
almost as splendid scale at all the large towns of the island, was
enlivened with groups of military officers, whose heavy broadcloth
uniforms, trailing sabers, and clanking spurs transported us back
from the tropics to some chilly European railway-station, and
presented the extreme contrast of colonial life. The train that came
panting from Tandjon Priok was made up of first-, second-, and third-
class cars, all built on the American plan, in that they were long cars
and not carriages, and we entered through doors at the end
platforms. The first-class cars swung on easy springs; there were
modern car-windows in tight frames, also window-frames of wire
netting; while thick wooden venetians outside of all, and a double
roof, protected as much as possible from the sun’s heat. The deep
arm-chair seats were upholstered with thick leather cushions, the
walls were set with blue-and-white tiles repeating Mauve’s and
Mesdag’s pictures, and adjustable tables, overhead racks, and a
dressing-room furnished all the railroad comforts possible. The
railway service of Netherlands India is a vast improvement on, and
its cars are in striking contrast to, the loose-windowed, springless,
dusty, hard-benched carriages in which first-class passengers are
jolted across British India. The second-class cars in Java rest on
springs also, but more passengers are put in a compartment, and
the fittings are simpler; while the open third-class cars, where native
passengers are crowded together, have a continuous window along
each side, and the benches are often without backs. The fares
average 2.2 United States cents a kilometer (about five eighths of a
mile) for first class, 1.6 cents second class, and 6 mills third class.
The first-class fare from Batavia to Sourabaya, at the east end of the
island, is but 50 gulden ($20) for the 940-kilometer journey,
accomplished in two days’ train-travel of twelve and fourteen hours
each, so that the former heavy expense (over a dollar a mile for
post-horses, after one had bought or rented a traveling-carriage) and
the delays of travel in Java are done away with.
The railways have been built by both the government and private
corporations, connecting and working together, the first line dating
from 1875. The continuous railway line across the island was
completed and opened with official ceremonies in November, 1894.
The gap of one hundred miles or more across the “terra ingrata,” the
low-lying swamp and fever regions either side of Tjilatjap, had
existed for years after the track was completed to the east and west
of it. Dutch engineers built and manage the road, but the staff, the
working force of the line, are natives, or Chinese of the more or less
mixed but educated class filling the middle ground between
Europeans and natives, between the upper and lower ranks.
Wonderful skill was shown in leading the road over the mountains,
and in building a firm track and bridges through the reeking swamps,
where no white man could labor, even if he could live. The trains do
not run at night, which would be a great advantage in a hot country,
for the reason that the train crews are composed entirely of natives
(since such work is considered beneath the grade of any European),
and the cautious Dutch will not trust native engineers after dark.
Through trains start from either end of the line and from the half-way
stations at five and six o’clock each morning, and run until the short
twilight and pitch-darkness that so quickly succeed the unchanging
six-o’clock tropical sunset. These early morning starts, and the eight-
and nine-o’clock dinner of the Java hotels, make travel most
wearisome. One may buy fruit at every station platform, and always
tea, coffee, chocolate, wine and schnapps, bread and biscuits at the
station buffets. At the larger stations there are dining-rooms, or a
service of lunch-baskets, in which the Gargantuan riz tavel, or
luncheon, is served hot in one’s compartment as the train moves on.
The hour-and-a-half’s ride from Batavia to Buitenzorg gave us an
epitome of tropical landscapes as the train ran between a double
panorama of beauty. The soil was a deep, intense red, as if the heat
of the sun and the internal fires of this volcanic belt had warmed the
fruitful earth to this glowing color, which contrasted so strongly with
the complemental green of grain and the groves of palms and cacao-
trees. The level rice-fields were being plowed, worked, flooded,
planted, weeded, and harvested side by side, the several crops of
the year going on continuously, with seemingly no regard to
seasons. Nude little boys, astride of smooth gray water-buffaloes,
posed statuesquely while those leisurely animals browsed afield; and
no pastoral pictures of Java remain clearer in memory than those of
patient little brown children sitting half days and whole days on
buffalo-back, to brush flies and guide the stupid-looking creatures to
greener and more luscious bits of herbage. Many stories are told of
the affection the water-ox often manifests for his boy keeper, killing
tigers and snakes in his defense, and performing prodigies of valor
and intelligence; but one doubts the tales the more he sees of this
hideous beast of Asia. Men and women were wading knee-deep in
paddy-field muck, transplanting the green rice-shoots from the seed-
beds, and picturesque harvest groups posed in tableaux, as the train
shrieked by. Children rolled at play before the gabled baskets of
houses clustered in toy villages beneath the inevitable cocoa-palms
and bananas, the combination of those two useful trees being the
certain sign of a kampong, or village, when the braided-bamboo
houses are invisible.
RICE-FIELDS.
At Depok there was a halt to pass the down-train, and the natives
of this one Christian village and mission-station, the headquarters of
evangelical work in Java, flocked to the platform with a prize
horticultural display of all the fruits of the season for sale. The record
of mission work in Java is a short one, as, after casting out the
Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, the Dutch forbade any others to
enter, and Spanish rule in Holland had perhaps taught them not to
try to impose a strange religion on a people. During Sir Stamford
Raffles’s rule, English evangelists began work among the natives,
but were summarily interrupted and obliged to withdraw when Java
was returned to Holland. All missionaries were strictly excluded until
the humanitarian agitation in Europe, which resulted in the formal
abolition of slavery and the gradual abandonment of the culture
system, led the government to do a little for the Christianization and
education of the people. The government supports twenty-nine
Protestant pastors and ten Roman Catholic priests, primarily for the
spiritual benefit of the European residents, and their spheres are
exactly defined—proselytizing and mutual rivalries being forbidden.
Missionaries from other countries are not allowed to settle and work
among the people, and whatever may be said against this on higher
moral grounds, the colonial government has escaped endless friction
with the consuls and governments of other countries. The authorities
have been quite willing to let the natives enjoy their mild
Mohammedanism, and our Moslem servant spoke indifferently of
mission efforts at Depok, with no scorn, no contempt, and apparently
no hostility to the European faith.
Until recently, no steps were taken to educate the Javanese, and
previous to 1864 they were not allowed to study the Dutch language.
All colonial officers are obliged to learn Low Malay, that being the
recognized language of administration and justice, instead of the
many Javanese and Sundanese dialects, with their two forms of
polite and common speech. These officials receive promotion and
preferment as they make progress in the spoken and written
language. Low Malay is the most readily acquired of all languages,
as there are no harsh gutturals or difficult consonants, and the
construction is very simple. Children who learn the soft, musical
Malay first have difficulty with the harsh Dutch sounds, while the
Dutch who learn Malay after their youth never pronounce it as well or
as easily as they pronounce French. The few Javanese, even those
of highest rank, who acquired the Dutch language and attempted to
use it in conversation with officials, used to be bruskly answered in
Malay, an implication that the superior language was reserved for
Europeans only. This helped the conquerors to keep the distinctions
sharply drawn between them and their subject people, and while
they could always understand what the natives were saying, the
Dutch were free to talk together without reserve in the presence of
servants or princes. Dutch is now taught in the schools for natives
maintained by the colonial government, 201 primary schools having
been opened in 1887, with an attendance of 39,707 pupils. The
higher schools at Batavia have been opened to the sons of native
officials and such rich Javanese as can afford them, and
conservatives lament the “spoiling” of the natives with all that the
government now does for them. They complain that the Javanese
are becoming too “independent” since schoolmasters, independent
planters, and tourists came, just as the old-style foreign residents of
India, the Straits, China, and Japan bemoan the progressive
tendencies and upheavals of this era of Asiatic awakening and
enlightenment; and tourist travel is always harped upon as the most
offending and corrupting cause of the changes in the native spirit.
Once above the general level of low-lying rice-lands, cacao-
plantations succeeded one another for miles beyond Depok; the
small trees hung full of fat pods just ripening into reddish brown and
crimson. The air was noticeably cooler in the hills, and as the
shadows lengthened the near green mountains began to tower in
shapes of lazuli mist, and a sky of soft, surpassing splendor made
ready for its sunset pageant. When we left the train we were whirled
through the twilight of great avenues of trees to the hotel, and given
rooms whose veranda overhung a strangely rustling, shadowy
abyss, where we could just discern a dark silver line of river leading
to the pale-yellow west, with the mountain mass of Salak cut in
gigantic purple silhouette.
The ordinary bedroom of a Java hotel, with latticed doors and
windows, contains one or two beds, each seven feet square, hung
with starched muslin curtains that effectually exclude the air, as well
as lizards or winged things. The bedding, as at Singapore, consists
of a hard mattress with a sheet drawn over it, a pair of hard pillows,
and a long bolster laid down the middle as a cooling or dividing line.
Blankets or other coverings are unneeded and unknown, but it takes
one a little time to become acclimated to that order in the penetrating
dampness of the dewy and reeking hours before dawn. If one makes
protest enough, a thin blanket will be brought, but so camphorated
and mildew-scented as to be insupportable. Pillows are not stuffed
with feathers, but with the cooler, dry, elastic down of the straight-
armed cotton-tree, which one sees growing everywhere along the
highways, its rigid, right-angled branches inviting their use as the
regulation telegraph-pole. The floors are made of a smooth, hard
cement, which harbors no insects, and can be kept clean and cool.
Pieces of coarse ratan matting are the only floor-coverings used, and
give an agreeable contrast to the dirty felts, dhurries, and carpets,
the patches of wool and cotton and matting, spread over the earth or
wooden floors of the unspeakable hotels of British India. And yet the
Javanese hotels are disappointing to those who know the solid
comforts and immaculate order of certain favorite hostelries of The
Hague and Amsterdam. Everything is done to secure a free
circulation of air, as a room that is closed for a day gets a steamy,
mildewed atmosphere, and if closed for three days blooms with
green mold over every inch of its walls and floors. The section of
portico outside each room at Buitenzorg was decently screened off
to serve as a private sitting-room for each guest or family in the
hours of startling dishabille; and as soon as the sun went down a big
hanging-lamp assembled an entomological congress. Every hotel
provides as a night-lamp for the bedroom a tumbler with an inch of
cocoanut-oil, and a tiny tin and cork arrangement for floating a wick
on its surface. For the twelve hours of pitch-darkness this little
lightning-bug contrivance burns steadily, emitting a delicious nutty
fragrance, and allowing one to watch the unpleasant shadows of the
lizards running over the walls and bed-curtains, and to look for the
larger, poisonous brown gecko, whose unpleasant voice calling
“Becky! Becky! Becky!” in measured gasps, six times, over and over
again, is the actual, material nightmare of the tropics.
British tourists, unmindful of the offending of their own India in
more vital matters, berate and scorn the tiny water-pitcher and basin
of the Java hotels, brought from the continent of Europe unchanged;
and rage at the custom of guests in Java hotels emptying their
basins out of doors or windows on tropical shrubbery or courtyard
pavings at will. There are swimming-pools at some hotels and in
many private houses, but the usual bath-room of the land offers the
traveler a barrel and a dipper. One is expected to ladle the water out
and dash it over him in broken doses, and as the swimming-pool is a
rinsing-tub for the many, the individual is besought not to use soap.
Naturally the British tourist’s invectives are deep and loud and long,
and he will not believe that the dipper-bath is more cooling than to
soak and soap and scour in a comfortable tub of his own. He will not
be silenced or comforted in this tubless tropical land, which, if it had
only remained under British rule, might be—would be—etc. All
suffering tourists agree with him, however, that the worst laundering
in the world befalls one’s linen in Java, the cloth-destroying, button-
exterminating dhobie man of Ceylon and India being a careful and
conscientious artist beside the clothes-pounder of Java. In making
the great circle of the earth westward one leaves the last of laundry
luxury at Singapore, and continues to suffer until, in the sub-stratum
of French civilization in Egypt, he finds the blanchisseuse.
The order of living is the same at the up-country hotels as at
Batavia, and the charges are the same everywhere in Java,
averaging about three dollars gold each day, everything save wine
included; and at Buitenzorg corkage was charged on the bottle of
filtered water which a dyspeptic tourist manufactured with a patent
apparatus he carried with him. Landlords do not recognize nor deal
with fractions of days, if they can help it, in charging one for board on
this “American plan”; but when that reckless royal tourist, the King of
Siam, makes battle over his Java hotel bills, lesser travelers may
well take courage and follow his example. The King of Siam has
erected commemorative columns crowned with white marble
elephants, as souvenirs of his visits to Singapore and Batavia, and
after the king’s financial victory over Buitenzorg and Garoet hotels,
the tourist sees the white elephant as a symbol of victory more
personally and immediately significant than the lion on the Waterloo
column. It has been said that “no invalid nor dyspeptic should enter
the portals of a Java hotel,” and this cannot be insisted upon too
strongly, to deter any such sufferers from braving the sunrise
breakfasts and bad coffee, the heavy riz tavel, and the long-delayed
dinner-hour, solely for the sake of tropical scenery and vegetation,
and a study of Dutch colonial life.
VI
A DUTCH SANS SOUCI
At daylight we saw that our portico looked full upon the front of
Mount Salak, green to the very summit with plantations and primeval
forests. Deep down below us lay a valley of Eden, where thousands
of palm-trees were in constant motion, their branches bending,
swaying, and fluttering as softly as ostrich-plumes to the eye, but
with a strange, harsh, metallic rustle and clash, different from the
whispers and sighs and cooing sounds of temperate foliage. As
stronger winds threshed the heavy leaves, the level of the valley
rippled and tossed in green billows like a barley-field. There was a
basket village on the river-bank, where tropic life went on in as plain
pantomime as in any stage presentation. At sunrise the people came
out of their fragile toy houses, stretched their arms to the sky and
yawned, took a swim in the river, and then gathered in the dewy
shade to eat their morning curry and rice from their plantain-leaf
plates. Then the baskets and cooking-utensils were held in the swift-
flowing stream,—such a fastidious, ideal, adorable sort of dish-
washing!—and the little community turned to its daily vocations. The
men went away to work, or sat hammering and hewing with
implements strangely Japanese, and held in each instance in the
Japanese way. The women pounded and switched clothing to and
fro in the stream, and spread it out in white and brilliant-colored
mosaics on the bank to dry. They plaited baskets and painted
sarongs, and the happy brown children, in nature’s dress, rolled at
play under the cocoanut-trees, or splashed like young frogs in and
out of the stream.
MOUNT SALAK, FROM THE RESIDENT’S GARDEN, BUITENZORG.
While this went on below, and we watched the dark indigo mass of
Salak turning from purple and azure to sunlit greens in the light of
early day, the breakfast of the country was brought to our porch: cold
toast, cold meats, eggs, fruit, tea or the very worst coffee in all the
world—something that even the American railway restaurant and
frontier hotel would spurn with scorn. Java coffee, in Java, comes to
one in a stoppered glass bottle or cruet, a dark-brown fluid that might
as well be walnut catsup, old port, or New Orleans molasses. This
double extract of coffee, made by cold filtration, is diluted with hot
water and hot milk to a muddy, gray-brown, lukewarm drink, that is
uniformly bad in every hotel and public place of refreshment that a
tourist encounters on the island. In private houses, where the fine
Arabian berry is toasted and powdered, and the extract made fresh
each day, the morning draught is quite another fluid, and worthy the
cachet the name of Java gives to coffee in far countries.
Buitenzorg, the Bogor of the natives, who will not call it by its
newer name, is one of the enchanted spots where days can slip by
in dateless delight; one forgets the calendar and the flight of time,
and hardly remembers the heavy, sickening heat of Batavia stewing
away on the plains below. It is the Versailles of the island, the seat of
the governor-general’s court, and the social life of the colony, a
resort for officials and the leisure class, and for invalids and the
delicate, who find strength in the clear, fresh air of the hills, the cool
nights, and the serenely tempered days, each with its reviving
shower the year round. Buitenzorg is the Simla of Netherlands India,
but it awaits its Kipling to record its social life in clear-cut,
instantaneous pictures. There are strange pictures for the Kipling to
sketch, too, since the sarong and the native jacket are as much the
regular morning dress for ladies at the cool, breezy hill-station as in
sweltering Batavia, a fact rather disproving the lowland argument
that the heat demands such extraordinary concessions in costume.
But as that “Bengal Civilian” who wrote “De Zieke Reiziger; or,
Rambles in Java in 1852,” and commented so freely upon Dutch
costume, cuisine, and Sabbath-keeping, succeeded, Mr. Money said,
in shutting every door to the English traveler for years afterward, and
added extra annoyances to the toelatings-kaart system, budding and
alien Kiplings may take warning.
The famous Botanical Garden at Buitenzorg is the great show-
place, the paradise and pride of the island. The Dutch are
acknowledgedly the best horticulturists of Europe, and with the heat
of a tropical sun, a daily shower, and nearly a century’s well-directed
efforts, they have made Buitenzorg’s garden first of its kind in the
world, despite the rival efforts of the French at Saigon, and of the
British at Singapore, Ceylon, Calcutta, and Jamaica. The governor-
general’s palace, greatly enlarged from the first villa of 1744, is in the
midst of the ninety-acre inclosure reached from the main gate, near
the hotel and the passer, by what is undoubtedly the finest avenue of
trees in the world. These graceful kanari-trees, arching one hundred
feet overhead in a great green cathedral aisle, have tall, straight
trunks covered with stag-horn ferns, bird’s-nest ferns, ratans,
creeping palms, blooming orchids, and every kind of parasite and
air-plant the climate allows; and there is a fairy lake of lotus and
Victoria regia beside it, with pandanus and red-stemmed Banka
palms crowded in a great sheaf or bouquet on a tiny islet. When one
rides through this green avenue in the dewy freshness of the early
morning, it seems as though nature and the tropics could do no
more, until he has penetrated the tunnels of waringen-trees, the
open avenues of royal palms, the great plantation of a thousand
palms, the grove of tree-fern, and the frangipani thicket, and has
reached the knoll commanding a view of the double summit of
Gedeh and Pangerango, vaporous blue volcanic heights, from one
peak of which a faint streamer of smoke perpetually floats. There is a
broad lawn at the front of the palace, shaded with great waringen-,
sausage-, and candle-trees, and trees whose branches are hidden in
a mantle of vivid-leafed bougainvillea vines, with deer wandering and
grouping themselves in as correct park pictures as if under branches
of elm or oak, or beside the conventional ivied trunks of the North.
It is a tropical experience to reverse an umbrella and in a few
minutes fill it with golden-hearted white frangipani blossoms, or to
find nutmegs lying as thick as acorns on the ground, and break their
green outer shell and see the fine coral branches of mace
enveloping the dark kernel. It is a delight, too, to see mangosteens
and rambutans growing, to find bread, sausages, and candles
hanging in plenty from benevolent trees, and other fruits and strange
flowers springing from a tree’s trunk instead of from its branches.
There are thick groves and regular avenues of the waringen, a
species of Ficus, and related to the banian- and the rubber-tree, a
whole family whose roots crawl above the ground, drop from the
branches and generally comport themselves in unconventional ways.
Bamboos grow in clumps and thickets, ranging from the fine,
feathery-leafed canes, that are really only large grasses, up to the
noble giants from Burma, whose stems are more nearly trunks easily
soaring to a hundred feet in air, and spreading there a solid canopy
of graceful foliage.
The creepers run from tree to tree, and writhe over the ground like
gray serpents; ratans and climbing palms one hundred feet in length
are common, while uncommon ones stretch to five hundred feet.
There is one creeper with a blossom like a magnified white violet,
and with all a wood-violet’s fragrance; but with only Dutch and
botanical names on the labels, one wanders ignorantly and
protestingly in this paradise of strange things. The rarer orchids are
grown in matted sheds in the shade of tall trees; and although we
saw them at the end of the dry season, and few plants were in
bloom, there was still an attractive orchid-show.
But the strangest, most conspicuous bloom in that choice corner
was a great butterfly flower of a pitcher-plant (a nepenthes), whose
pale-green petals were veined with velvety maroon, and half
concealed the pelican pouch of a pitcher filled with water. It was an
evil-looking, ill-smelling, sticky thing, and its unusual size and striking
colors made it haunt one longest of all vegetable marvels. There
were other more attractive butterflies fluttering on pliant stems,
strange little woolly white orchids, like edelweiss transplanted, and
scores of delicate Java and Borneo orchids, not so well known as
the Venezuelan and Central American orchids commonly grown in
American hothouses, and so impossible to acclimate in Java.
Lady Raffles died while Sir Stamford was governor of Java, and
was buried in the section of the palace park that was afterward (in
1817) set apart as a botanical garden, and the care of the little Greek
temple over her grave near the kanari avenue was provided for in a
special clause in the treaty of cession. The bust of Theismann, who
founded the garden and added so much to botanical knowledge by
his studies in Java and Borneo, stands in an oval pleasance called
the rose-garden; and there one may take heart and boast of the
temperate zone, since that rare exotic, the rose, is but a spindling
bush, and its blossoming less than scanty at Buitenzorg, when one
remembers California’s, and more especially Tacoma’s, perennial
prodigalities in showers of roses. In 1895 Professor Lotsy of Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, was called to assist the learned
curator, Dr. Treub, in the management of this famous Hortus
Bogoriensis, which provides laboratory and working-space for, and
invites foreign botanists freely to avail themselves of, this unique
opportunity of study. Over one hundred native gardeners tend and
care for this great botanic museum of more than nine thousand living
specimens, all working under the direction of a white head-gardener.
The Tjiliwong River separates the botanic garden from a culture-
garden of forty acres, where seventy more gardeners look to the
economic plants—the various cinchonas, sugar-canes, rubber, tea,
coffee, gums, spices, hemp, and other growths, whose introduction
to the colony has so benefited the planters. Experiments in
acclimatization are carried on in the culture-garden, and at the
experimental garden at Tjibodas, high up on the slopes of Salak,
where the governor-general has a third palace, and there is a
government hospital and sanatorium.
Theismann’s famous museum of living twig- and leaf-insects was
abandoned some years ago, the curator deciding to keep his garden
strictly to botanical lines. One no longer has the pleasure of seeing
there those curious and most extraordinary freaks of nature—the
fresh green or dry and dead-looking twigs that suddenly turn their
heads or bend their long angular legs and move away; or leaves, as
delusive in their way, that detach themselves from a tree-branch and
fly away. These insects bearing so astonishing a resemblance to
their environment may be purchased now and then from Chinese
gardeners; but otherwise, if one asks where they can be found or
seen, there comes the usual answer, “In Borneo or Celebes,”—
always on the farther, remoter islands,—tropic wonders taking wing
like the leaf-insects when one reaches their reputed haunts.
All Java is in a way as finished as little Holland itself, the whole
island cultivated from edge to edge like a tulip-garden, and
connected throughout its length with post-roads smooth and perfect
as park drives, all arched with waringen-, kanari-, tamarind-, or teak-
trees. The rank and tangled jungle is invisible, save by long journeys;
and great snakes, wild tigers, and rhinoceroses are almost unknown
now. One must go to Borneo and the farther islands to see them,
too. All the valleys, plains, and hillsides are planted in formal rows,
hedged, terraced, banked, drained, and carefully weeded as a
flower-bed. The drives are of endless beauty, whichever way one
turns from Buitenzorg, and we made triumphal progresses through
the kanari- and waringen-lined streets in an enormous “milord.” The
equipage measured all of twenty feet from the tip of the pole to the
footman’s perch behind, and with a cracking whip and at a rattling
gait we dashed through shady roads, past Dutch barracks and
hospitals, over picturesque bridges, and through villages where the
native children jumped and clapped their hands with glee as the
great Juggernaut vehicle rolled by. We visited the grave of Raden
Saleh, a lonely little pavilion or temple in a tangle of shrubbery that
was once a lovely garden shaded by tall cocoa-palms; and we drove
to Batoe Toelis, “the place of the written stone,” and in the little
thatched basket of a temple saw the sacred stone inscribed in
ancient Kawi characters, the original classic language of the
Javanese. In another basket shrine were shown the veritable
footprints of Buddha, with no explanation as to how and when he
rested on the island, nor yet how he happened to have such long,
distinctively Malay toes. Near these temples is the villa where the
poor African prince of Ashantee was so long detained in exile—an
African chief whose European education had turned his mind to
geology and natural sciences, and who led the life of a quiet student
here until, by the exchange from Dutch to British ownership of
Ashantee, a way was opened for him to return and die in his own
country. There is a magnificent view from the Ashantee villa out over
a great green plain and a valley of palms to the peaks of Gedeh and
Pangerango, and to their volcanic neighbor, Salak, silent for two
hundred years. Peasants, trooping along the valley roads far below,
made use of a picturesque bamboo bridge that is accounted one of
the famous sights of the neighborhood, and seemed but processions
of ants crossing a spider’s web. All the suburban roads are so many
botanical exhibitions approaching that in the great garden, and one’s
interest is claimed at every yard and turn.
FRANGIPANI AND SAUSAGE-TREE.
It takes a little time for the temperate mind to accept the palm-tree
as a common, natural, and inevitable object in every outlook and
landscape; to realize that the joyous, living thing with restless,
perpetually threshing foliage is the same correct, symmetrical,
motionless feather-duster on end that one knows in the still life of
hothouses and drawing-rooms at home; to realize that it grows in the
ground, and not in a pot or tub to be brought indoors for the winter
season. The arches of gigantic kanari-trees growing over by-lanes
and village paths, although intended for triumphal avenues and
palace driveways, overpower one with the mad extravagance, the
reckless waste, and the splendid luxury of nature. One cannot
accept these things at first as utilities, just as it shocks one to have a
servant black his shoes with bruised hibiscus flowers or mangosteen
rind, or remove rust from kris- or knife-blades with pineapple-juice,
thrusting a blade through and through the body of the pine. The

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Guide to International Human Rights

Practice Hurst Hannum (Editor)

International Human Rights Law. Theory and Practice 1st

International Human Rights Law and Practice 3rd Edition

Chinese Contributions to International Discourse of

Judicial Dialogue on Human Rights The Practice of

Human Rights Politics and Practice 3rd Edition Michael

Adoption Law and Human Rights International

Criminal Theory and International Human Rights Law 1st

Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Rights History

T h e Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute is a tax-exempt, Section 501(c)(3) organiza-

Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute

T H E INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW GROUP, e s t a b l i s h e d in 1 9 7 8 , is a n o n p r o f i t , p u b l i c i n t e r -

T h e International H u m a n Rights Law G r o u p is a tax-exempt, Section 501 (c)(3) organization in-

International H u m a n Rights Law G r o u p

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Guide to international h u m a n rights practice / edited for the Procedural

It is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort,

Part I. Preliminary Considérations

1. An Overview of International H u m a n Rights Law 3

2. Implementing Human Rights: An Overview of 19

Part il. International Procedures for Making

3. Treaty-Based Procedures for Making H u m a n Rights 41

4. United Nations Non-Treaty Procedures for Dealing 60

5. The Complaint Procedure of the United Nations 86

6. Human Rights Complaint Procedures of the 99

Part III. Regional Systems for the Protection

7. The Inter-American Human Rights System 119

8. Europe: T h e Council of Europe, the CSCE, and the 133

9. The African Charter on Human and Peoples'Rights 159

Part IV. Other Techniques and Forums

10. International Reporting Procedures 173

11. Quasi-Legal Standards and Guidelines for Protecting 192

12. The International and National Protection of 211

13. The Role of Domestic Courts in Enforcing 228

A. Bibliographic Essay 249

B. Checklist to Help Select the Most Appropriate Forum 267

C. Model Communication 271

D. Addresses of Intergovernmental Organizations 276

E. Ratifications of Selected Human Rights Instruments 280

T h e Procedural Aspects of International Law Institute, a n o n p r o f i t

Director, it was designed, in the words of Amy's Foreword, "to assist

of the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program. At The Fletcher

The international human rights movement is based on the concept

whether at home or abroad, can be furthered by the imaginative use

A Brief Historical Note

establishment in 1919 of the International Labour Organization (ILO)

particularly in southern Africa, and the growing emphasis by Arab

What Is the Content of International

resolutions, and recommendations relevant to international human

dealing with aspects of American corporate operations in South Af-

• compilations of human rights documents contained in UN and

• news media reports, which can provide factual information on a

Who Is Bound by International Human Rights Law?

h u m a n rights obligations. Almost all nations in the world a r e now

rule is not recognized as customary law), such instruments are likely

How Can International Human Rights

Enforcement by international organizations occurs through a vari-

High Commissioner for Human Rights, have been blocked by coun-

Problems and Prospects

tries with different cultures, political systems, and ideologies, and at

problems? And if, as some believe, humanity faces an increasingly