Human Rights without Support of the Concerned State: A Comparative Analysis of Successive Human Rights Council Mechanisms Established for Burundi and Myanmar

IHRLC Working Paper Series No. 6, November 2020

111 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2020

See all articles by Ashleigh Lussenden

Ashleigh Lussenden

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law

Blaire Lee-Nakayama

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law

Helena von Nagy

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law

Laurel E. Fletcher

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law

Date Written: November 2020

Abstract

The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) is the central United Nations institution charged with protecting and promoting human rights globally. In response to human rights violations in specific countries, the HRC may exercise its authority to establish fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry to help bring wrongdoers to justice. As an inter-governmental body, the HRC favors cooperative arrangements with states in which human rights violations have occurred. Nevertheless, the HRC has acted over the objections of governments to establish human rights mechanisms. This report examines four occasions on which the HRC has done so: when it established successive fact-finding and investigative bodies for Burundi and for Myanmar, respectively. To gain insight into the conditions under which the HRC will proceed to establish fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry without the cooperation of the country in question, the report identifies the public explanations HRC member states offered of their votes on the resolutions creating or extended these international mandates. To gain insight into the consequences of creating human rights interventions under these circumstances, the report also reviews the substantive findings and operational challenges of each mechanism.

Suggested Citation

Lussenden, Ashleigh and Lee-Nakayama, Blaire and von Nagy, Helena and Fletcher, Laurel E., Human Rights without Support of the Concerned State: A Comparative Analysis of Successive Human Rights Council Mechanisms Established for Burundi and Myanmar (November 2020). IHRLC Working Paper Series No. 6, November 2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3742467 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3742467

Ashleigh Lussenden

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law ( email )

215 Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

Blaire Lee-Nakayama

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law ( email )

215 Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

Helena Von Nagy

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law ( email )

Berkeley, CA
United States

Laurel E. Fletcher (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley - School of Law ( email )

215 Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

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