New book: Tracing the Roles of Soft Law in Human Rights
The new book “Tracing the Roles of Soft Law in Human Rights” examines how soft law contributes to the development of human rights. The book focusses on the connections between soft law and binding conventions within the area of human rights, and analyses whether soft law contributes to expand or restrict the protection of human rights. The book, edited by Stéphanie Lagoutte, together with Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and John Cerone, is one of the first books that assesses the various roles of soft law within human rights.
The books various contributors emphasize that soft law has become increasingly important over the last decades.
"The number of guidelines, statements and recommendations on human rights has increased significantly over the last twenty years. Meanwhile, traditional conventions have been almost absent at the UN level. Therefore, we believe that it was necessary to look at the roles that soft law plays in practice within the human rights field", says Stéphanie Lagoutte.
Does soft law constitute a threat to human rights?
The book points out that soft law is important when it comes to assisting states to understand, concretize and comply with their human rights obligations. Soft law can serve as a first step in the regulation of a given area, before engaging into the development of legally binding instruments. In some cases, soft law in some cases is used as an interpretative tool that can both expand or restrict human rights protection. Beside, soft law can create grey zones, between politics and law, where it is difficult to identify who is the duty bearer of an actual right.
Soft law connects law and politics together for better or worse
"Soft law connects law and politics together for better or worse. Understanding how soft law influences international human rights is necessary if we want to understand the actual extent of the states’ human rights obligations. Additionally, it may help us to understand and challenge political discourses and beliefs that are part of human rights," says Stéphanie Lagoutte.
The use of case studies
The first part of the book focusses on areas of human rights law, where hard law standards are well established. These chapters examine the role that different actors play in the process of defining and interpreting soft law. This part deals mainly with the UN human rights bodies and their interpretation of human rights, and the relationship between human rights and international humanitarian law.
The second part of the book focusses on the areas of human rights where no treaty codification of norms exists. These chapters examine the role of different actors in formulating new soft law, and how soft law instruments participates in defining human rights in various areas, such as the protection of indigenous peoples, minorities, participation rights and the role of human rights in business.
Two senior researchers at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Anette Faye Jacobsen and Peter Vedel Kessing, also contributed to the book.