International Law

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Please, click on each of the following link to read the corresponding information and legal documents.

Courts

International Instruments

Background

Since the United Nations was founded in 1945, the various states have drafted several tools to facilitate international law.

Several of those international tools are listed here, with a focus on criminal justice, rights of the accused, prohibition of torture and prisoners’ rights contained within relevants sections of each document. Please, note that only the provisions relevant to these issues are selected. By concern of clarity, some articles are not quoted in their original version but their content is summarized. It also provides which country ratified, signed or otherwise adopted each specific treaty and when.

Note that declarations, principles, guidelines and rules have no binding legal effect, but provide member states with a standard, and advisory or moral force and provide practical guidance to states in their conduct. Hence there is hereforth no reference to signing or ratification. However, covenants, conventions, statutes, and protocols are legally binding for those states that sign and then ratify or accede to them. By signing a convention, a state expresses its intention to become a party to the convention. However, signature does not oblige a state to take further action towards ratification. Ratification involves the legal obligation for the state to apply the convention. It is reserved for Member States (although there are some exceptions).

Torture

Binding Instruments

UN General Assembly Declarations

Prisoner's Rights and Sentencing Standards

UN General Assembly Declarations

UN ECOSOC Resolutions

Children's Rights

Binding Instruments

UN General Assembly Declarations

Other

Binding Instruments

UN General Assembly Declarations

UN ECOSOC Resolutions

UN Congresses

Regional Instruments

African

Binding Instruments

Declarations

American

Arab

European

Asian