Ethical & Legal Instruments
National Park Service
Binding treatyConvention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006 and in force since 2008, this Convention exists to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights by persons with disabilities, and respect for their inherent dignity. Its defining move is to treat disability as something produced by the interaction between a person's long-term impairment and the attitudinal and environmental barriers around them, rather than as a defect in the person. Accessibility, individual autonomy and full inclusion in society run through the whole text, with particular attention to women, girls and children with disabilities.
2006 · 33 provisions
Robert Stansfield / DFID - UK Department for International Development
Binding treatyConvention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989 and the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, the Convention sets out the rights of every human being below the age of eighteen. Its organising rule is that in all actions concerning children the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration, and that the rights it lists apply to every child without discrimination, including discrimination based on what a child's parents or guardians do. States commit to implementing them to the maximum extent of their available resources.
1989 · 41 provisions
AMISOM Public Information (photo: Ilyas Ahmed)
Binding treatyConvention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and in force since 1981, CEDAW defines discrimination against women as any distinction, exclusion or restriction based on sex that impairs women's enjoyment of human rights on equal terms with men, in any field of life. States parties undertake to write equality into their constitutions and laws, to provide legal protection through competent tribunals, and to modify or abolish discriminatory laws, regulations, customs and practices. Its premise is that a country's full development, the welfare of the world and the cause of peace all require women's maximum participation on equal terms.
1979 · 16 provisions
Anthony M. via Wikimedia Commons
Binding treatyConvention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1984 and in force since 1987, this treaty defines torture and commits every state party to prevent it in any territory under its jurisdiction. Its central rule admits no exception: neither war, internal political instability, any other public emergency, nor an order from a superior officer can ever justify torture. It also bars returning anyone to a state where they would be in danger of being tortured, and reaches beyond torture itself to other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
1984 · 16 provisions
Pradyumnakp via Wikimedia Commons
Binding treatyConvention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
Opened for signature at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and in force since 1993, the Convention on Biological Diversity sets three objectives: conserving biological diversity, using its components sustainably, and sharing fairly and equitably the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. It gives primary emphasis to conserving ecosystems and habitats in place, requires the prior informed consent of the providing country for access to genetic resources, and calls on parties to respect and maintain the knowledge and practices of indigenous and local communities and to share with them the benefits of using that knowledge. Public education and awareness are treaty obligations in their own right.
1992 · 10 provisions
Thérèse Ottawa via Wikimedia Commons
DeclarationUnited Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 by 144 votes to 4, with all four opposing states since reversing their position, this declaration sets a standard for the rights of indigenous peoples. It affirms their right to self-determination, to autonomy in their internal and local affairs, and to maintain their own distinct institutions while participating fully in the life of the state. Its preamble names the historic injustices of colonisation and dispossession, and rejects doctrines of superiority as racist, scientifically false, legally invalid and morally condemnable. It is a declaration rather than a treaty, proclaimed as a standard of achievement to be pursued in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect.
2007 · 46 provisions
Photographer not stated by source; Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, U.S. National Archives
DeclarationUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1948, the Universal Declaration is the founding statement of modern human rights and the text that later instruments in this bank repeatedly build on. It is a declaration rather than a treaty, so it binds no state directly, yet its opening premise became the shared ground for the covenants and conventions that followed: that recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
1948 · 30 provisions
Martin Dorsch via Unsplash and Wikimedia Commons
Binding treatyUnited Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
Adopted in 1982 and in force since 1994, UNCLOS is often called a constitution for the oceans: 320 articles that replaced a patchwork of customary claims and unilateral assertions with one legal framework binding on all parties equally. Sovereignty at sea is graduated by distance from shore rather than absolute, freedom of the high seas is the default beyond national jurisdiction, and the deep seabed and its resources are declared the common heritage of mankind, to be used for the benefit of all with particular consideration for developing states. It places an affirmative duty on states to protect and preserve the marine environment and to conserve living marine resources, and provides compulsory machinery for settling disputes peacefully. This record summarises those core commitments rather than the treaty's boundary and survey mechanics.
1982 · 9 provisions
Zeynel Cebeci
Quasi-binding standardWOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) Terrestrial Animal Health Code, Chapter 7.1 — Guiding Principles for Animal Welfare
Chapter 7.1 of the World Organisation for Animal Health's Terrestrial Animal Health Code, first adopted in 2004 and last updated in 2019, is the closest thing that exists to an officially adopted international statement of animal welfare principles. WOAH is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1924 with 183 member countries, and since a 1998 agreement it is the World Trade Organization's recognised reference standard-setter for animal health in trade, which gives its codes real weight even though they are formally recommendations rather than a treaty ratified state by state. The chapter defines animal welfare as the physical and mental state of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives and dies, and builds its guiding principles on the internationally recognised five freedoms and three Rs.
2004 · 20 provisions
Patrick Myers / U.S. National Park Service (Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve)
Binding treatyConvention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS / Bonn Convention)
Adopted at Bonn in 1979 and in force since 1983, this treaty of the UN Environment Programme protects wild animals whose populations cyclically and predictably cross national borders. Its premise is that no single state can conserve a species that spends its life cycle in many, and that each generation holds the earth's resources in trust for those that follow. Species in danger of extinction are listed in Appendix I, where range states must conserve and restore critical habitat, remove obstacles to migration, and prohibit taking them except in narrow circumstances that must be reported; species that would benefit from coordinated management are listed in Appendix II, for which range states work toward dedicated agreements.
1979 · 12 provisions
A.G. Smith, Toronto, photographer
Binding treatyILO Core Labour Conventions (Nos. 87, 98, 29, 105, 138, 182, 100, 111, 155, 187) — combined core-principles summary
Ten binding treaties of the International Labour Organization held together in one record: the eight conventions named as fundamental by the ILO's 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, plus two governance conventions on occupational safety and health. Between them they cover forced labour, freedom of association and collective bargaining, equal pay for work of equal value, discrimination in employment and occupation, the minimum age for work, the worst forms of child labour, and national policy on safety at work. The ILO is a UN specialised agency with a tripartite structure in which governments, employers' organisations and workers' organisations each hold a voting voice, and the eight fundamental conventions are considered binding in principle on all 187 member states whether or not each has been individually ratified.
1930 · 10 provisions
W.carter via Wikimedia Commons
Binding treatyInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
One of the two covenants that turned the Universal Declaration into binding law, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and in force since 1976. It carries the civil and political half of that inheritance. Its preamble grounds those rights in the inherent dignity of the human person, and states plainly that the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want is reachable only where civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights are secured together.
1966 · 29 provisions