FRANCO MOSCONI

La tutela internazionale dei diritti umani a cinquant'anni dalla dichiarazione universale

N. 187

Summary — The adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights represented a threshold in the defence of human rights. Before then, international law did not accord any rights to individuals, whereas the Declaration clearly affirmed that not states, but rather, all individuals as such, should be considered bearers of the rights contained in it.

While the Declaration only has recommendatory force, a number of legal constraints in defence of human rights have since taken root: the initiation of the signing of the two UN Pacts, on economic, social and cultural rights, and on civil and political rights, was in 1966, and the pacts only came into force in 1976; the action taken in Europe was more rapid and decisive, leading to the adoption in 1950 of the European convention on human rights (which came into force in 1953).

From the convention for the repression of genocide (1948) to the attempt to bring into existence a permanent International Criminal Court, efforts have been undertaken to make international law take account of individual responsibilities for government practices leading to systematic violations of fundamental individual rights. At least as far as the most serious violations of fundamental rights are concerned, a solution is proposed in the statute of the permanent International Criminal Court, which sets out a complex system of coordination of between state jurisdictions, and between these and the International Court itself.