Practical Tips for Human Rights Research

Stefan Kirchner
www.crosslegal.com
In terms of methodology, international human rights law is pretty much
straightforward. As part of Public International Law, the rules which are codified
in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice 1 as well as in the
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 2 many of which are customary
international law, apply.
Article 38 (1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice defines the
sources of international law:
The Court, whose function is to decide in accordance with
international law such disputes as are submitted to it, shall apply:
a. international conventions, whether general or particular,
establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states ;
b. international custom, as evidence of a general practice
accepted as law;
c. the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations ;
d. subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and
the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the
various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of
rules of law.3
While there is not one single, universal, doctrine of precedent and despite the
fact that Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court makes it clear that
jurisprudence is not a source of law, precedent matters. In international law,
and in particular in international human rights law, precedent matters far more
than in the Continental including the Nordic legal system. The functioning
of precedents in international law might not be as clear as in Common Law
where you find the rule of stare decisis et quieta non movere.
This does not mean that courts will not change their jurisprudence, indeed,
earlier I had mentioned the idea of the European Convention on Human Rights
as a living instrument, but precedent absolutely matters in international law,

1 Available online at <http://legal.un.org/avl/pdf/ha/sicj/icj_statute_e.pdf> (last visited 20 April 2015).

2 Available online at <https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201155/volume-1155I-18232-English.pdf> (last visited 20 April 2015).

3 Art. 38 (1) Statute of the International Court of Justice.

including international human rights law, much more than the text of Article 38
of the Statute of the ICJ implies.
But where do you actually find information? Here are a number of links which
you should be familiar with:
- Human
Rights
Committee:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CCPR/Pages/CCPRIndex.aspx
- United
Nations
Permanent
Forum
on
Indigenous
Peoples:
http://undesadspd.org/indigenouspeoples.aspx
- European Court of Human Rights Database: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int
- CERD: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/
In addition, a couple of law libraries and organizations have created research
guides on human rights:
- United
Nations
Dag
Hammarskjld
Library:
http://research.un.org/en/docs/humanrights
- UN
High
Commissioner
for
Human
Rights:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Library/Pages/HRGuide.aspx
- University
of
Minnesota
Human
Rights
Library:
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/
- Georgetown
Law:
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/library/research/guides/humanri
ghtslaw.cfm
- Columbia
University:
http://library.law.columbia.edu/guides/Human_Rights
- New
York
University:
http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Human_Rights1.htm
- American Society of International Law Electronic Resource
Guide: http://www.asil.org/sites/default/files/ERG_HUMRTS.pdf
- American Society of International Law Electronic Information
System for International Law: http://www.eisil.org/
and there is the website by Professor Anne Bayefsky which gives you all you
need to know in order to engage in international human rights litigation:

- http://www.bayefsky.com/ > How to Complain to the UN Human

Rights Treaty System.