International Law and Human Rights

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue on International Law and Human Rights examines both the growing convergence and remaining divergences between international law and human rights law, which are provoked by simultaneous contemporary global crises facing humanity in 2022: the unabated consequences of the global pandemic and rising transnational health threats, the global food crises and inflation, the global energy crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, climate change and the looming ecological crises and social crises on issues of racial justice, equality, non-discrimination and reparations demands for historic injustices. How does a state-driven or largely state-based international law address these crises, adequately or inadequately? How do the claims of human rights law—which pertain to individuals and groups as subjects of international law but devoid of any enforcement powers possessed by states—respond to these crises?  Where does international law and human rights law converge to support responses to crises in the international system? When there are divergences between state-driven international law and individual or group-driven human rights law during crises, which authoritative decision-maker(s) (whether courts, tribunals, legislatures or executives or international organizations) should decide the impasse to resolve intractable geopolitical problems and their consequences for all of humanity?

In his famous 1950 book, International Law and Human Rights, Hersch Lauterpacht famously argued that it was not necessary to elaborate human rights norms and state obligations within the United Nations Charter because the core state obligation to promote human rights under Articles 1(3) and 55 in relation to 56 were sufficient, in his view, to internalize human rights within the international legal system, seeing an inimitable partnership between international law and human rights. This Special Issue carries forward and explores Lauterpacht’s thesis in the face of rampant global vulnerabilities and threats that expose the fissures within the seeming separate development trajectories of international law and human rights.

Prof. Dr. Diane Desierto
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Laws is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• international law
• human rights
• global crises
• states
• individuals
• groups
• UN Charter
• human rights treaties
• enforcement powers
• adjudication