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Brems, Eva --- "Smart human rights integration" [2018] ELECD 939; in Brems, Eva; Ouald-Chaib, Saïla (eds), "Fragmentation and Integration in Human Rights Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 165

Book Title: Fragmentation and Integration in Human Rights Law

Editor(s): Brems, Eva; Ouald-Chaib, Saïla

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781788113915

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Smart human rights integration

Author(s): Brems, Eva

Number of pages: 30

Abstract/Description:

This chapter focuses on diversity/fragmentation as a desirable issue in a context of human rights integration. The chapter develops a ‘smart’ concept of human rights integration that strives for an appropriate balance between integration and fragmentation. Such human rights integration is not to be confused with a project of unification of human rights. The chapter first briefly describes the state of the art with regard to fragmentation and integration in human rights law, including scholarly debates on this issue. Next, the chapter makes the case for increased integration compared to the status quo. The main part of the chapter then identifies and analyses several arguments/rationales for limits to human rights integration. These are categorized under three headings: specialisation, contextualisation and experimentation. Finally, the chapter argues that the success of smart human rights integration is not to be assessed in terms of outcomes, but in terms of process, and that its central feature is thus a global human rights conversation. The idea is not so much that one human rights monitoring body acts in the same way or comes to the same conclusion as another body on the same issue, but rather that it is informed about what others do/have done, and reflects upon the desirability of adopting the same approach.