Enforcement of Human Rights Standards: An International Human Rights Court and Other Proposals

Authors

Nanette Dumas

Abstract

Anyone who is outraged on hearing accounts of torture, genocide, or other human rights violations also is inevitably frustrated by the international community's helplessness in its inability to right these wrongs. This Note supports the establishment of an international human rights court and proposes that the court be divided into criminal and civil sections. The criminal court would prosecute human rights violations, and the civil court would provide a forum for individual victims and their families to sue and collect damages. In the absence of a comprehensive solution to human rights violations, such as a human rights court, this Note surveys alternative approaches, including the enforcement of human rights norms through domestic courts, the use and expansion of regional human rights courts, and the use of negative publicity by nongovernmental organizations to embarrass governments into compliance with human rights standards.

Recommended Citation

Nanette Dumas, Enforcement of Human Rights Standards: An International Human Rights Court and Other Proposals, 13 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 585 (1990).
Available at: https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_international_comparative_law_review/vol13/iss3/12