Human rights through the backdoor: the contribution of special procedures to the normative coherence and contradictions of International Human Rights Law

This chapter explores the contribution of mandate-holders of special procedures to the development of international human rights standards, using as a paradigm their diverse interpretation of the legal framework, which serves as the basis of their operations. It evaluates the extent to which the human rights norms developed by the special procedures are consonant with other international efforts to regulate the same matters

History of the special procedures: a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach to human rights implementation

The existence of UN Special Procedures is the unintended result of the competence accorded to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in the 1967 Economic and Social Council Resolution 1235 (XLII). The Resolution authorised both bodies ‘to examine information relevant to gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms’. The lack of foresight in the creation of such mechanisms, now known as ‘special procedures’, is a fundamental factor in explaining the evolution of methods of work developed by different mandate holders. The ‘soft’ legal basis and geo-political factors surrounding the creation and renewal of mandates explains the freedom and flexibility they have enjoyed in establishing innovative monitoring activities that are more intrusive upon state sovereignty than any other UN human rights mechanism. As the significance of the Special Procedures’ work has grown, attempts to curtail their autonomy and impact have increased accordingly, facilitated precisely by what has been seen as, until recently, their major strength: the lack of a strong institutional and coherent legal framework regulating their activities. This chapter analyses this evolution and outlines the major challenges mandate holders face in maintaining their relevance

Universalism or fragmentation: United Nations treaty-bodies and affirmative actions in Latin-America, the United Kingdom, South Africa, China and India

The absence of uniform terminology or criteria to decide whether specific groups should receive different treatment with the aim of achieving greater equality, hinders the attempt to frame the issue beyond the boundaries of individual States in a coherent manner, especially from a legal perspective, because their implementation becomes particularly unpopular when States enforce them by law. This chapter addresses whether the international human rights regime contributes to harmonize regulatory frameworks and principles concerning affirmative actions or, conversely, whether it merely reflects on the diversity of State practices in this area. For this purpose, this chapter explains and updates the arguments and conclusions drawn from previous research analysing the relevant activity of UN human rights monitoring mechanisms and treaty provisions in this field. It then focuses specifically on the recommendation on affirmative actions issued by the United Nations treaty-bodies to the States covered by this book. It evaluates the different engagement of committees with relevant State parties and identifies common trends and inconsistencies of the UN human rights mechanisms in their treatment of special measures

Contextualizing the Cassese Report: the dictatorship that changed the United Nations human rights system and its legacy in monitoring economic, social and cultural rights

This chapter explains the key reasons underpinning the low impact of the Cassese Report on foreign aid and its relationship with human rights violations in Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship. Through the lenses of the intergovernmental decisions establishing the mandates and scope of competences of special procedures, the analysis demonstrates the absence of political will to equate the importance granted to civil and political rights with that granted to economic, social and cultural rights. The progress to mitigate this imbalance since the time of publication of the Cassese Report has been quantitative rather than qualitative. While economic, social and cultural rights have gained prominence over the years, most advances remain insufficient, especially regarding the role of business in human rights abuses. As long as the political decisions adopted within the human rights monitoring system do not implement the indivisibility of all rights, it will be very difficult to achieve substantial progress in this field

La crisis de los derechos humanos: necesidad de un cambio de estrategia [Confidence crisis in human rights: the need of rethinking strategies]

The article explores possible factors influencing the current crisis of the human rights agenda and the way forwar

The diacylglycerol kinase α/Atypical PKC/β1 integrin pathway in SDF-1α mammary carcinoma invasiveness

Diacylglycerol kinase α (DGKα), by phosphorylating diacylglycerol into phosphatidic acid, provides a key signal driving cell migration and matrix invasion. We previously demonstrated that in epithelial cells activation of DGKα activity promotes cytoskeletal remodeling and matrix invasion by recruiting atypical PKC at ruffling sites and by promoting RCP-mediated recycling of α5β1 integrin to the tip of pseudopods. In here we investigate the signaling pathway by which DGKα mediates SDF-1α-induced matrix invasion of MDA-MB-231 invasive breast carcinoma cells. Indeed we showed that, following SDF-1α stimulation, DGKα is activated and localized at cell protrusion, thus promoting their elongation and mediating SDF-1α induced MMP-9 metalloproteinase secretion and matrix invasion. Phosphatidic acid generated by DGKα promotes localization at cell protrusions of atypical PKCs which play an essential role downstream of DGKα by promoting Rac-mediated protrusion elongation and localized recruitment of β1 integrin and MMP-9. We finally demonstrate that activation of DGKα, atypical PKCs signaling and β1 integrin are all essential for MDA-MB-231 invasiveness. These data indicates the existence of a SDF-1α induced DGKα - atypical PKC - β1 integrin signaling pathway, which is essential for matrix invasion of carcinoma cells

Between learning and schooling: the politics of human rights monitoring at the Universal Periodic Review

This paper explores the politics of monitoring at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a new United Nations human rights monitoring mechanism which aims to promote a universal approach and equal treatment when reviewing each country’s human rights situation. To what extent are these laudable aims realised, and realisable, given entrenched representations of the West and the Rest as well as geopolitical and economic inequalities both historically and in the present? Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the UN in 2010–11, the final year of the UPR’s first cycle, we explore how these aims were both pursued and subverted, paying attention to two distinct ways of talking about the UPR: first, as a learning culture in which UN member states ‘share best practice’ and engage in constructive criticism; and second, as an exam which UN member states face as students with vastly differing attitudes and competences. Accounts and experiences of diplomats from states that are not placed in the ‘good students’ category offer valuable insights into the inherent contradictions of de-historicised and de-contextualised approaches to human rights

Search for Neutral Higgs Bosons in Events with Multiple Bottom Quarks at the Tevatron

The combination of searches performed by the CDF and D0 collaborations at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider for neutral Higgs bosons produced in association with b quarks is reported. The data, corresponding to 2.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity at CDF and 5.2 fb-1 at D0, have been collected in final states containing three or more b jets. Upper limits are set on the cross section multiplied by the branching ratio varying between 44 pb and 0.7 pb in the Higgs boson mass range 90 to 300 GeV, assuming production of a narrow scalar boson. Significant enhancements to the production of Higgs bosons can be found in theories beyond the standard model, for example in supersymmetry. The results are interpreted as upper limits in the parameter space of the minimal supersymmetric standard model in a benchmark scenario favoring this decay mode.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a bb pair in events with one charged lepton and large missing transverse energy using the full CDF data set

We present a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a W boson in sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV p-pbar collision data collected with the CDF II detector at the Tevatron corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45 fb-1. In events consistent with the decay of the Higgs boson to a bottom-quark pair and the W boson to an electron or muon and a neutrino, we set 95% credibility level upper limits on the WH production cross section times the H->bb branching ratio as a function of Higgs boson mass. At a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV/c2 we observe (expect) a limit of 4.9 (2.8) times the standard model value.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett (v2 contains clarifications suggested by PRL

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying to a bbˉb\bar{b} pair in events with no charged leptons and large missing transverse energy using the full CDF data set

We report on a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a vector boson in the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 1.96$ TeV recorded by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45 fb$^{-1}$. We consider events having no identified charged lepton, a transverse energy imbalance, and two or three jets, of which at least one is consistent with originating from the decay of a $b$ quark. We place 95% credibility level upper limits on the production cross section times standard model branching fraction for several mass hypotheses between 90 and $150 \mathrm{GeV}/c^2$. For a Higgs boson mass of $125 \mathrm{GeV}/c^2$, the observed (expected) limit is 6.7 (3.6) times the standard model prediction.Comment: Accepted by Phys. Rev. Let