Securing Human Rights? Achievements and Challenges of the UN Security Council

Throughout the first decades of its existence, many held the view that the UN Security Council would in some senses automatically encourage the protection of human rights by maintaining international peace. However since the end of the Cold War there have been growing concerns that the Council is a force with the potential to do harm to the cause of human rights, even to the extent of violating the rights of individuals. The chapters of this volume take a closer look at these twosides of the Security Council's involvement in human rights; both its efforts to promote and enforce human rights, and its actions that, with the intention of maintaining and restoring international peace, also have the potential to jeopardize human rights.This book represents a collection of individual views and appraisals of how the Council has dealt with human rights issues in the post-Cold War period, particularly in the cases of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq and the targeted sanctions directed against the Taliban and supporters of the Al Qaida network. Written by experts in the field of international law, they are both positive and negative, critical and analytical. Together they offer a selection of different perspectives andevaluate the contribution of the Security Council to the promotion of human rights, highlighting possible avenue for improvement.

Bardo Fassbender is Professor of International Law at the Bundeswehr University in Munich. He studied at the University of Bonn and holds an LL.M from Yale Law School and a Doctor iuris from the Humboldt University in Berlin. Before joining the Bundeswehr University, he taught in Berlin, St Gallen, and Munich (Ludwig Maximilians University). His principal fields of research are international law, United Nations law, German constitutional law, comparative constitutional law and theory, and the history of international and constitutional law. Among his many publications are the books UN Security Council and the Right of Veto: A Constitutional Perspective (The Hague/London/Boston, 1998), Der offene Bundesstaat: Studien zur auswartigen Gewalt und zur Volkerrechtssubjektivitat bundesstaatlicher Teilstaaten in Europa (Tubingen, 2007), and The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community (Leiden/Boston, 2009).

1: Bardo Fassbender: Introduction
2: Daphna Shraga: The Security Council and Human Rights - From Discretion to Promote to Obligation to Protect
3: Vera Gowlland-Debbas: The Security Council as Enforcer of Human Rights
4: Bardo Fassbender: The Role for Human Rights in the Decision-making Process of the Security Council
5: Annalisa Ciampi: Security Council Targeted Sanctions and Human Rights
6: Erika de Wet: Human Rights Considerations and the Enforcement of Targeted Sanctions in Europe: The Emergence of Core Standards of Judicial Protection
7: Salvatore Zappalà: Reviewing Security Council Measures in the Light of International Human Rights Principles
Annex 1: Guidelines of the Committee for the Conduct of its Work (Security Council Committee established Pursuant to Resolution 1267 (1999) concerning Al Qaida and the Taliban and Associated Individuals and Entities)
1. Introduction, Bardo Fassbender
2. The Security Council and Human Rights - From Discretion to Promote to Obligation to Protect, Daphna Shraga
3. The Security Council as Enforcer of Human Rights, Vera Gowlland-Debbas
4. The Role for Human Rights in the Decision-making Process of the Security Council, Bardo Fassbender
5. Security Council Targeted Sanctions and Human Rights, Annalisa Ciampi
6. Human Rights Considerations and the Enforcement of Targeted Sanctions in Europe: The Emergence of Core Standards of Judicial Protection, Erika de Wet
7. Reviewing Security Council Measures in the Light of International Human Rights Principles, Salvatore Zappala
Annex 1: Guidelines of the Committee for the Conduct of its Work (Security Council Committee established Pursuant to Resolution 1267 (1999) concerning Al Qaida and the Taliban and Associated Individuals and Entities)