The UDHR declared rights; the next task was to make them law. Over the following decades, states built a system of treaties, monitoring bodies and courts. Alongside them grew a large network of independent organizations.

The two Covenants

The Cold War split the drafting work. Western governments stressed civil and political rights; the Soviet bloc stressed economic and social rights. In the end, the UN adopted two treaties in 1966:

• The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): life, freedom from torture and slavery, fair trial, freedom of expression, religion and assembly, participation in public affairs and more.
• The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR): work, social security, an adequate standard of living, health, education and cultural life.

Both entered into force in 1976, after enough countries ratified them. Together with the UDHR they are often called the International Bill of Human Rights. A key difference: the ICESCR asks states to achieve its rights progressively, using the maximum of their available resources, recognizing that a poor country cannot build universal health care overnight. The ICCPR's rights are meant to be respected immediately.

More specific treaties

Later treaties addressed particular groups and abuses, including conventions against racial discrimination (1965), discrimination against women (1979), torture (1984), on the rights of the child (1989, now the most widely ratified human rights treaty), and on the rights of persons with disabilities (2006).

Treaty bodies

Each major treaty has a treaty body: a committee of independent experts. For example, the Human Rights Committee monitors the ICCPR. States that join a treaty must report regularly on how they are meeting it. The committee questions government representatives, hears from civil society, and publishes recommendations. Where a state has agreed, individuals can also bring complaints. Treaty bodies cannot send police or impose fines; their power lies in scrutiny, public reporting and legal interpretation.

The UN also has a political body, the Human Rights Council, created in 2006, which reviews the record of every UN member state in turn, and a High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Regional courts

Some of the strongest enforcement happens at the regional level:

• Europe: the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), created under the Council of Europe (a separate body from the European Union), is enforced by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Individuals can bring cases against their own governments, and its judgments are binding on member states.
• The Americas: the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica, under the American Convention on Human Rights (1969).
• Africa: the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (1981), which notably includes rights of peoples and duties of individuals, with a commission and the African Court in Arusha, Tanzania.

International criminal law

Human rights treaties mostly hold states responsible. International criminal law targets individuals. The International Criminal Court, created by the Rome Statute of 1998 and based in The Hague, can try people for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so.

NGOs

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are independent groups not run by governments. Amnesty International, founded in London in 1961 by the lawyer Peter Benenson, began by campaigning for people imprisoned for their peaceful beliefs, whom it called prisoners of conscience. Human Rights Watch grew from a group founded in 1978 to monitor human rights commitments in the Soviet bloc. Thousands of local and national groups do similar work. NGOs investigate abuses, publish reports, lobby governments, support victims in court and feed information to treaty bodies. Much of the system's real force comes from this pressure.

Worked example: one complaint, many routes

Imagine Tomas, a citizen of a European country, who is held in jail for three years awaiting trial for a minor offense. He believes his right to a fair trial within a reasonable time has been violated. What can he do?

1. National courts first. Almost every international route requires him to try his own country's courts and appeals before going further. This gives states the first chance to fix the problem.
2. The regional court. If national courts fail him, he can apply to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. If it finds a violation, its judgment is binding: the state must comply, which can include paying compensation, and is expected to change its practices.
3. A UN treaty body. If his country has accepted individual complaints under the ICCPR, he could instead go to the Human Rights Committee. Its views are not enforceable like a court judgment, but they carry legal and public weight.
4. NGOs and the press. A human rights organization might take up his case, provide a lawyer, publicize it, and include it in a report on pretrial detention that prompts wider reform.

Now imagine Tomas lives in a country that has joined no regional system and accepted no complaint procedures. His options shrink to national courts and public pressure. This shows how unevenly the system covers the world: the strength of a person's rights often depends on which treaties their own government has chosen to join.