Introduction

The UN Charter was not designed to address human rights, at least directly, but was instead a mechanism primarily intended to maintain and secure international peace and security. None the less, some scant references to human rights are visible therein, but as will be discussed in this chapter these were not originally meant to confer strict obligations on states or otherwise to establish a global order of rights-holders. Despite these shortcomings the human rights framework of the Charter remains crucially important because in the sixty or so years since its adoption many of the Charter’s principal organs and their subsidiary institutions have been instrumental in the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide. Given that the Charter is a living instrument it is only natural that organs originally devoted to human rights have fallen into desuetude and others have surfaced to take their place. Thus, the Charter represents a constantly changing battleground of ideas, institutions, actors and activities within which politics and human rights are at odds. In the midst of this battleground, however, one finds a plethora of actors, both states and NGOs, that seek to close this gap between politics and rights.

Although initially this seemed like a vain uphill struggle on account of the fact that the UN is quintessentially a political organisation, since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s there has been a shift towards a more visible human rights-centred approach. This is evidenced from the increased depoliticisation of human rights institutions, the adoption of a human rights agenda by the Security Council and the mainstreaming of human rights within the Organisation as a whole. Thus, as will become evident in the next section the UN Charter can no longer be construed in accordance with the political climate and notions of state sovereignty prevailing in 1945. In equal manner, article 2(7) of the Charter, which forbids the Organisation to intervene in the domestic affairs of states, necessarily now excludes human rights violations from its ambit.