Human Rights Bodies and International Humanitarian Law: Common But Differentiated Approaches
Forthcoming in C. Buckley, P. Leach and A. Donald, The Harmonisation of Human Rights Law (Leiden: Brill /Martinus Nijhoff).
Leiden Law School Research Paper
Grotius Centre Working Paper 2014/020-IHL
28 Pages Posted: 11 Jun 2014
Date Written: June 10, 2014
Abstract
Human rights courts and bodies are increasingly called upon to look outwards, beyond the immediate contours of their constituent instruments and beyond their own jurisprudence. A key aspect of this phenomenon is the jurisprudential ‘borrowing’ or trans-judicial ‘dialogue’ between human rights courts, bodies and systems that is explored in detail in other chapters of this book. There is, however, also a growing call for such bodies to have regard to, interpret and in some cases ‘apply’ a range of other norms of international law beyond international human rights law (IHRL). UN imposed sanctions, the assertion of immunities of the state and state officials and issues of state responsibility are among the contexts in which human rights courts have recently had to grapple with generic international law-concepts or rules from areas of law other than IHRL, often with controversial results. This chapter considers the approach of human rights courts and bodies to one such issue of interplay that arises with increasing frequency, namely the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) alongside IHRL in situations of armed conflict.
Keywords: Human Rights Bodies, International Humanitarian Law, Lex Specialis
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