Kriangsak Kittichaisaree's innovative international legal book, International Human Rights Law and Diplomacy, offers us a practical perspective on the recent progressive development of the increasing role of diplomatic procedures and their modern practices, including the introduction of the mature field of international law and international relations scholarship, and also an exploration of the exponentially growing base of international human rights protection from the marginalized at state level to the international stage, focusing on the role and contribution of professional diplomats.
This book consists of eight chapters, which includes an introduction and a conclusion. Chapter 1 outlines the critical relationship between international human rights law and diplomacy and the paradigm shift in international human rights research from the perspective of international legal practitioners, while Chapters 2 through 7 focus respectively on the contributions to the development of the international human rights regime from international, regional, and national perspectives. The author begins Chapter 1 with a multifaceted explanation of the critical importance of diplomacy in the formation of international human rights practices. Chapter 2 illustrates that the United Nations human rights system has dramatically moved away from the clash of politics, idealism, law, the mechanisms of treaty bodies, United Nations human rights mandates, and their promising-sounding realism.
Chapter 3 systematically presents the regionalization of human rights and the reappraisal of their diplomatic practices throughout the world, beginning with Europe, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, the Arab world, and Asia. Chapter 5 shows the importance of localization of international human rights instruments by assessing the commitment to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention against Torture, and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers (CRMW), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), and the procedural requirements for their enforcement and their legal consequences and effects.
Chapter 6 highlights the implementation of, and compliance with, international human rights documents, particularly those arising from existing multiple diplomacies. Furthermore, Chapter 7 fundamentally reassesses the universalization of normative international human rights. Last but not least, Chapter 8 sheds innovative light on new areas of human rights, for example, in cyberspace, and at sea. As a result, the book documents the enormous contribution of diplomatic practices to the recent evolution of international human rights norms, both at the national and global levels.
Competing interests
None.
