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The Use (or Misuse) of Amendments to Contest Human Rights Norms at the UN Human Rights Council

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Abstract

The development of international human rights norms and law is an often-contentious process. Despite significant gains from recent research on the development and implementation of human rights law, little research has focused on strategies of contestation prior to final outcome documents like resolutions, declarations, or treaties. Amendments to UN Human Rights Council resolutions are a form of contestation, particularly validity contestation that happens prior to the passage of Council resolutions. This paper examines the use of amendments by states using descriptive statistics from Council proceedings from 2006 through 2018 as well as case studies on women’s rights and civil society space to illustrate how states use amendments to frame their positions. Amendments are increasingly being used by states from the Global South to contest the validity of potential human rights norms at the Council. The long-term impacts of the use of amendments are an often overlooked but important part of the Council’s ability to promote and protect rights.

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Notes

  1. The use of amendments is only one tool used by states to change the content of resolutions. Prior to tabling amendments, Member States generally discuss the content of resolutions in a series of informal meetings. Process tracing, especially using archival research, would also help scholars better understand Member State behaviour at the Council. Unfortunately, archival research is excluded from this paper because of time embargoes on some documents by some Member States or a reluctance to share documents by other Member States.

  2. Both cases examine amendments sponsored by ‘revisionist’ states. Western-led amendments are most often used on ‘protection of the family’ resolutions but are excluded because these resolutions have been discussed elsewhere (Voss 2019).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on this piece and the University of Toledo for a generous grant for this research.

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    M. Joel Voss

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Voss, M.J. The Use (or Misuse) of Amendments to Contest Human Rights Norms at the UN Human Rights Council. Hum Rights Rev 20, 397–422 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-019-00574-w

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