Speaker 1: First, let's talk about this idea of international law. International law isn't really law per se, but more a series of customs and international agreements and arrangements about how the global community should operate. More so than a truly enforceable law. At the end of the day, the global community operates under state sovereignty. While a state going against international law might see some repercussions in terms of possibly sanctions or just some finger-wagging, at the end of the day, states can still, for the most part, do whatever they want. However, states are compelled to follow international law in order to maintain positive relations with the rest of the international community. In terms of human rights, depending on how you classify them, there are between 9 and 18 documents that make up the body of human rights law. And you can see a list of these just scrolling down right next to me here. These come in the form of treaties, conventions, and covenants that all have a very similar role and the names are used interchangeably. What these do is create binding agreements between states. If a state that ratifies one of these and breaks it, they are seen as breaking international law. First, one of these treaties is drafted by the UN. After a treaty is drafted by the UN, individual states are encouraged to sign it. Signing it, however, doesn't quite yet make it binding. What signing it does is it compels the states to agree to the principles of the new forthcoming treaty. However, after a state signs it, they then have the option to ratify it. And once a state ratifies a treaty, it then binds the state to that treaty and the state is then known as being a party to the treaty. Let's take a look at a few examples here. Two of the more important human rights treaties are the dual covenants that were signed in 1976. The first is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the second is the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. What these aim to do is enshrine some of the ideas from the Declaration of Human Rights into binding international law. Because these covenants are binding, the ratification is a little bit more spotty, especially in the case of the United States. The United States traditionally has been very hesitant to ratify these human rights treaties believing that it infringes on their sovereignty. One example of one of these major international human rights treaties that the US hasn't ratified is the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. One different American governments have believed that some of the elements in this covenant, especially in terms of things like healthcare, reproductive rights, and economic freedom, would infringe on some of the central core values of the United States. On the other hand, many do believe that ratification of a treaty like this could potentially go a long way in addressing some of the issues around poverty and inequality that the United States continues to face to this day. Another example is the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into effect in the year 1990. This one, for example, aims to provide compulsory elementary education to children and regulation around the age of employment, trying to make sure that child labor is eradicated from the world. In fact, in Canada, the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act that aimed to reform how criminal justice affects minors specifically referenced the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a guiding document in the formation of this new legislation in Canada. And so we see that while internationally sometimes being part of these documents doesn't lead to meaningful enforcement, often states do take being party to these treaties in order to improve or work on their own domestic legislation, like in the case of Canada and the Youth Criminal Justice Act. New declarations often start this process. In 2007 came into effect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Persons. On the initial vote, four countries voted against this declaration. Those included Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Four countries that have a very troubled past with their indigenous populations. And all four are currently undergoing processes to try and heal some of those divisions created by previous policies. While what might then follow are some more binding treaties, without the participation of these four countries that have this troubled history with their indigenous populations, it'll be difficult to form meaningful treaties that will be able to solve some of these issues. So at the end of the day, a major question around these human rights law documents is how effective are they really? Because again, in a world where state sovereignty rules supreme and enforcing these internationally is tremendously difficult, what role do they actually play in the international community? Some countries use ratification of these as ways to guide their policy. But again, the difficulty in enforcing these violations continues to be a major barrier and meaningful change on human rights globally. And with that, thank you for watching. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already so you don't miss anything. And we'll see you again next time.