CYIL 2014

ARE INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS BOUND BY INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS… To sum up, inasmuch as (certain) human rights can be considered to form general principles of international law, they will bind international organisations and apply to their activities. Despite the fact that this is a somewhat imprecise answer to the questions of whether human rights constitute general principles of international law 102 and of which of them, if yes, in practice the general nature of general principles makes them less likely to be a subject of derogation than is, for example, the case with customary obligations. 3.4 Unilateral acts as another source of human rights obligations International organisations may possess the competence to adopt decisions binding themselves; thus it appears logical to discuss unilateral acts as a possible source of human rights obligations. Nevertheless, such obligations may have different addressees. International organisations may adopt decisions binding themselves internally (internal instructions binding its organs 103 ), but they may produce unilateral commitments in their external relations, for example by promising to provide humanitarian aid or money to a third State. Things get even more complicated with the internal– external conception if the organisation is empowered to adopt decisions binding to its Member States (e.g. the European Union). I will not explore this at this stage, as it does not appear necessary for answering the question whether such unilateral acts can be a source of human rights obligations. As much as international organisations possess the capacity to issue such acts, be it with purely internal effect or also external effect, whether the addressees are the Member States or third States, unilateral acts can be considered as a source of their human rights obligations. 4. Conclusions The present study has certainly its weak but also strong points. Among the weak ones which I am aware of, is that it appears difficult to address questions of a general character such as is the case in this contribution. Such considerations are likely to leave questions unanswered or often stop at a point when it starts to get interesting. However, I consider the article to have provided strong evidence for the necessity to go back to the roots of all the interesting niches of the two dominant trends in the post-war development of international law, its humanisation and institutionalisation, and to explore one of the fundamental questions arising from the intertwinement of these developments, namely whether international organisations have human rights obligations under international law. I have shown that currently international organisations must be regarded as separate legal entities under international law, and thus they are also generally able to bear 102 An interesting approach was taken by Clapham , who does not mention general principles of law but adds another „category“ of human rights law by speaking about „universal standards, which may not necessarily by legally binding as such“. CLAPHAM, Andrew. Human rights obligations of non-state actors . Supra note 22, p. 99-100. 103 For example, the UN-Secretary General’s Bulletin on Observance by United Nations forces of international humanitarian law (UN Doc. ST/SGB/1999/13 of 6 August 1999).

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