International human rights instruments

International human rights instruments can be classified into two categories: declarations, adopted by bodies such as the United Nations General Assembly, which are not legally binding although they may be politically so; and conventions, which are legally binding instruments concluded under international law.

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International human rights instruments can be divided further into global instruments, to which any state in the world can be a party, and regional instruments, which are restricted to states in a particular region of the world.

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Most conventions establish mechanisms to oversee their implementation.

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In some cases these mechanisms have relatively little power, and are often ignored by member states; in other cases these mechanisms have great political and legal authority, and their decisions are almost always implemented.

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Examples of the first case include the UN treaty committees, while the best exemplar of the second case is the European Court of Human Rights.

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Mechanisms also vary as to the degree of individual access to them.

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Under some conventions – e.g. the European Convention on Human Rights (as it currently exists) – individuals are permitted automatically to take individual cases to the enforcement mechanisms; under most, however, (e.g. the UN conventions) individual access is contingent on the acceptance of that right by each state party, either by a declaration at the time of ratification or accession, or through ratification of or accession to a protocol to the convention.

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