Cuardaigh
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Union
The 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights falls on 10 December 2023, against a background of war, conflict and geopolitical tensions that would have been familiar to its drafters, and new challenges, such as climate change and technological advances, which they would not have imagined. Then and now, the Declaration, which has served as a foundation for the codification of human rights at global, regional and national level, remains a central reference to be invoked for the ...
Indivisibility of human rights: Unifying the two Human Rights Covenants?
This year we celebrate 70 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration, adopted on 10 December 1948 in Paris by the United Nations General Assembly, expressed an idea that was revolutionary at the time: human rights are universal, indivisible and inter-dependant, and the international community has an obligation to ensure protection of those rights. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic ...
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its relevance for the European Union
Seventy years after its adoption, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has achieved all of the significance its drafters hoped it would. It has served as a foundation for the codification of human rights at global, regional and national level. Even though non-binding, many of its provisions enjoy such undisputed recognition as to be considered part of customary international law and therefore universally obligatory. In the absence of universal ratification of the human rights treaties, the Declaration ...
What next after Opinion 2/13 of the Court of Justice on the accession of the EU to the ECHR?
Opinion 2/13 of the Court of Justice on the accession of the EU to the European Court of Human Rights highlights the requirements of the autonomy of EU law which may be called into question by accession. However not acceding does not truly guarantee this autonomy because Member States may be brought before the Court when they implement EU law. Under these conditions, both Article 6 TEU and the risks linked to the present situation call for a resumption of the negotiation process. Changes may be made ...
Violence and persecution levelled at Christians around the world
In 2050, Christianity will still be the religion with the most adherents worldwide, with a following outnumbering that of Islam, although the latter will not be far behind it numerically. However, this forecast should not be allowed to obscure the fact that Christianity remains very diverse, being divided into Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant branches, and that demographic trends are different for each of them. Despite the fact that Christianity remains the most widely practised religion, Christians ...