Ethical & Legal Instruments
Đana Talić
Draft, never adoptedUniversal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW) — DRAFT, NEVER ADOPTED
A proposed declaration on animal welfare drafted at the 2003 Manila conference and revised in Costa Rica in 2005, driven by animal welfare organisations with World Animal Protection acting as secretariat. It was never adopted by the UN or by any government, has no legal or institutional authority of its own, and never reached a vote in the General Assembly. Its text recognises animals as living, sentient beings deserving due consideration and respect, and holds that humans share the planet with other species within an interdependent ecosystem. It is held here as evidence of a stated aspiration, kept clearly apart from every ratified instrument in this bank, with its unresolved bracketed negotiating language left visible.
2005 · 7 provisions
Berthold Werner
Binding treatyConvention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954 Hague Convention) — core principles summary
UNESCO's 1954 Hague Convention is the first and most comprehensive multilateral treaty devoted to protecting cultural heritage in wartime. Its stated premise is that any damage to cultural property, irrespective of the people it belongs to, is damage to the cultural heritage of all humanity, because every people contributes to the world's culture. States commit to preparing protection in peacetime through inventories and evacuation plans, to refrain from acts of hostility against cultural property and from using it in ways that expose it to destruction, and to register the most important sites for special protection under a distinctive emblem. They are also asked to create units within their armed forces responsible for protecting cultural property, and to set real sanctions for breaches.
1954 · 6 provisions
Steve onyebuchi
Binding treatyConvention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions — core principles summary
Adopted by UNESCO in 2005 and in force since 2007, this treaty affirms that cultural goods, services and activities carry identity, values and meaning, and are not to be treated as having solely commercial value. It reaffirms the sovereign right of states to formulate and implement cultural policies protecting and promoting their own cultural expressions, without that being treated as a trade barrier, and it gives developing countries preferential treatment, cooperation for development and an International Fund for Cultural Diversity. Civil society has a defined role in implementation, and one of the Convention's own articles places culture inside sustainable development rather than beside it.
2005 · 6 provisions
Joli
Binding treatyConvention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH Convention)
Adopted by UNESCO in 2003 and in force from 2006, this is the first binding multilateral instrument for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage: the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities recognise as part of their heritage and continually recreate. It grounds itself explicitly in the Universal Declaration and the two international covenants, and limits its own definition to heritage compatible with existing human rights instruments and with mutual respect and sustainable development, a built-in guard against invoking culture to justify violating rights. States must identify and safeguard the heritage in their territory with the participation of the communities and groups who hold it, not unilaterally through government experts.
2003 · 9 provisions
Pierre André Leclercq
Binding treatyConvention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention) — core principles summary
UNESCO's 1972 convention linked cultural site preservation and nature conservation in a single treaty, treating people and nature as one interdependent system rather than two separate concerns. Sites inscribed on the World Heritage List are recognised as having outstanding universal value that transcends national borders, so the international community shares responsibility for them, while every ratifying state also commits to conserving its broader national heritage. A World Heritage Fund exists so that protection is not limited to the states that can afford it, and the List of World Heritage in Danger makes threats a formal, public status rather than a private failure. Communities were added as a fifth strategic objective in 2007, recognising the role of indigenous, traditional and local communities.
1972 · 6 provisions
Government of Indonesia (Presidential Secretariat)
DeclarationASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) — core principles summary
A political declaration adopted by the ten ASEAN member states at Phnom Penh in 2012, and the first region-wide human rights instrument for Southeast Asia. It affirms a broad set of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to a safe, clean and sustainable environment, modelled on the structure of the Universal Declaration. It is not a treaty: it creates no enforceable individual claim and no regional court or commission with binding authority. Its clause requiring rights to be considered in the regional and national context drew sustained criticism from UN human rights bodies and civil society as a possible basis for limiting rights, and that criticism belongs with the text.
2012 · 5 provisions
Forbes Johnston
Binding treatyAfrican Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (Banjul Charter) — core principles summary
Adopted at Nairobi in 1981 by the Organisation of African Unity and in force since 1986, the Banjul Charter is unusual among major regional rights treaties in recognising collective rights of peoples alongside individual ones: self-determination, free disposal of their wealth and natural resources, development, peace, and a generally satisfactory environment. It is also the only one with an explicit chapter of individual duties, toward family, society, the state and the international community. Civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are treated as one indivisible set rather than split across separate treaties, and enforcement runs through a Commission with a strong promotional mandate alongside a Court that can issue binding judgments.
1981 · 5 provisions
AMISOM Public Information
Binding treatyAfrican Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) — core principles summary
Adopted by the Organisation of African Unity in 1990 and in force since 1999, this is Africa's own binding children's rights treaty, adopted because member states judged that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child missed socio-cultural and economic realities particular to Africa. It is a stated correction to that Convention rather than a regional restatement of it. It defines protection from economic exploitation broadly, covering work that is hazardous or that interferes with education, health, or a child's physical, social, mental, spiritual or moral development, and it names harmful social and cultural practices as a distinct category of harm alongside abuse, trafficking and exploitation.
1990 · 4 provisions
Emabcr
Binding treatyAmerican Convention on Human Rights ("Pact of San José") — core principles summary
Adopted by the Organization of American States at San José in 1969 and in force since 1978, the Pact of San José binds its parties to the classic civil and political rights, with economic, social and cultural rights added later through the separate 1988 Protocol of San Salvador. Enforcement runs in two tiers: the Inter-American Commission receives individual petitions and can refer unresolved cases to the Inter-American Court, whose judgments bind the states that have accepted its jurisdiction. Certain guarantees may be suspended in war or public emergency, but the Convention names an explicit non-derogable core, including the right to life, humane treatment, freedom from slavery and the rights of the child, that stands even then.
1969 · 5 provisions
Kritzolina
Binding treatyArab Charter on Human Rights — core principles summary
The League of Arab States' binding regional rights treaty, adopted in its revised form in 2004 and in force from 2008 after the seventh ratification; an earlier 1994 draft was never ratified and never entered into force. It grounds itself in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration and the international covenants while also affirming the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, placing itself deliberately between the two lineages rather than choosing one. Its rights list follows the familiar civil and political core, and enforcement runs through an independent Arab Human Rights Committee reviewing state reports every three years rather than through a court. Ten states have ratified it, and Arab civil society groups have criticised it as falling short of international standards in documented ways.
2004 · 5 provisions
Vyacheslav Argenberg
DeclarationCairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI)
Adopted at Cairo in 1990 by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as general guidance in the field of human rights, this is a declaration rather than a treaty and creates no court or enforcement mechanism of its own. Its Article 24 states that all the rights and freedoms it stipulates are subject to the Islamic Sharia, which makes its source of authority different in kind from the Universal Declaration's grounding of rights in human dignity independent of any single tradition. It has been criticised by human rights bodies and scholars over freedom of religion, corporal punishment and discrimination, criticism tied directly to that article. It is held here with that criticism attached, because it is the clearest case in this bank of two frameworks disagreeing about where rights come from rather than about which rights to list.
1990 · 4 provisions
Uhooep
Binding treatyCharter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union — core principles summary
Proclaimed in 2000 and legally binding since the Treaty of Lisbon took effect in 2009, the Charter carries the same legal value as the European Union's founding treaties and can be invoked before the Court of Justice. Its 54 articles are grouped under six value headings, Dignity, Freedoms, Equality, Solidarity, Citizens' Rights and Justice, and it opens by stating that human dignity is inviolable and must be respected and protected. It is unusually broad, placing social and economic rights such as fair working conditions, social security, healthcare and environmental protection alongside classic civil liberties, and it addresses bioethics directly, prohibiting eugenic practices, reproductive cloning and making the human body a source of financial gain. It binds the EU institutions, and member states when they apply EU law.
2000 · 6 provisions