The league of Arab states and the protection of human rights: a legal analysis

Abstract

The United Nations has created an abundance of human rights treaties and declarations over the decades to promote a culture of human rights and to set normative provisions of human rights standards for all states to follow. This broad effort is supplemented by the work of regional human rights organisations, which aim to ensure implementation of these fundamental precepts, and to enhance its work to suit its regional circumstances, offering a protective source of jurisprudence at the domestic level. One such organisation, which this thesis examines, is the Arab League. In critically examining the history and the work of the Arab League, the study highlights the deficiencies in promoting and protecting human rights. In this context, this thesis critically examines the Arab League’s development and relationship with the wider international human rights apparatus. It provides a comprehensive overview of the system of the United Nations and its specialised organs that with the resolutions adopted helped the League establish its own regional human rights systems. It traces the history of the application of international human rights discourse in the Arab world. Accordingly, an attempt is made to conceptualise the universality of human rights in the region and the impact of the Shariah discourse. It then attempts to provide an analytic description of the Arab League and background to the region and undertakes an in-depth critical analysis of the structure of the League and assesses its impact in the region, all of which may have incentives to the League’s attempt to institutionalise, promote and protect human rights. The study considers the efforts made by the Arab Permanent Commission on Human Rights and its specialised agencies that ultimately led to the adoption of the Arab Charter on Human Rights (1994). After examining the limitations of the Commission and its work, the scope and structure of the revised Arab Charter on Human Rights (2004) is critically analysed. The study also examines and evaluates the legislative framework of the Arab Human Rights Committee (the Charter’s enforcement mechanism as per Art.45). A case study of the Syrian Arab Republic and the analysis of continuing violations of human rights in the region illustrate the deficiencies and limitations of the Arab League as a regional organisation.