UNA-UK has received permission to reproduce this article from the Journal of International Law and International Relations. The article appeared in Volume 2, issue 1 (Fall 2005) of the journal and was also presented by Professor Wheeler at a conference held in Toronto, Canada and entitled ‘The UN at 60: Celebration or Wake?’.

*Professor Nick Wheeler is Director of the David Davies Memorial Institute in the Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is a leading expert on humanitarian intervention and the author of Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford University Press, 2000).

According to the 2004 Foreign Office annual report on human rights, the UK has ratified every major international human rights treaty. However, this claim is undermined by the fact that the UK has not signed the UN’s International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (MWC), which entered into force in July 2003. What is more, the government shows no intention of changing its position, having stated that national policies already strike the “right balance between the need for immigration control and the protection of the interests and rights of migrant workers and their families”.

* Laura Mucha was formerly a Research Associate in the UNA-UK Human Rights Programme

N.B. This article was written before the General Assembly Resolution creating the new Human Rights Council

Established under the UN Charter as a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is the leading human rights body within the UN system. Today, its mandate is to promote and protect human rights worldwide, and take action against violations wherever they occur. While the CHR has been successful in bringing onto the international agenda a number of key issues – among them violence against women, economic and social rights, the death penalty and corporate social responsibility – it has come under increasing criticism over its composition, operational effectiveness and susceptibility to politicisation.

* Laura Mucha was formerly a Research Associate in the UNA-UK Human Rights Programme