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

Integral relations and the adiabatic expansion method for 1+2 reactions above the breakup threshold: Helium trimers with soft-core potentials

The integral relations formalism introduced in \cite{bar09,rom11}, and designed to describe 1+$N$ reactions, is extended here to collision energies above the threshold for the target breakup. These two relations are completely general, and in this work they are used together with the adiabatic expansion method for the description of 1+2 reactions. The neutron-deuteron breakup, for which benchmark calculations are available, is taken as a test of the method. The s-wave collision between the $^4$He atom and $^4$He$_2$ dimer above the breakup threshold and the possibility of using soft-core two-body potentials plus a short-range three-body force will be investigated. Comparisons to previous calculations for the three-body recombination and collision dissociation rates will be shown.Comment: To be published in Physical Review

Variational description of continuum states in terms of integral relations

Two integral relations derived from the Kohn Variational Principle (KVP) are used for describing scattering states. In usual applications the KVP requires the explicit form of the asymptotic behavior of the scattering wave function. This is not the case when the integral relations are applied since, due to their short range nature, the only condition for the scattering wave function $\Psi$ is that it be the solution of $(H-E)\Psi=0$ in the internal region. Several examples are analyzed for the computation of phase-shifts from bound state type wave functions or, in the case of the scattering of charged particles, it is possible to obtain phase-shifts using free asymptotic conditions. As a final example we discuss the use of the integral relations in the case of the Hyperspherical Adiabatic method.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev.

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