Human rights are universal, but their protection largely depends on States. What happens when those responsible for upholding these rights are the very ones violating them? Can the international community intervene? And what are the real limits of the United Nations?
Nexum Explains — Understanding to Transform
October 24, 2026 | United Nations Day
Imagine someone being arbitrarily detained for expressing their opinions. A community being forcibly displaced from its territory. Or a government introducing measures that systematically restrict the rights of certain groups.
In principle, the State should be responsible for preventing these situations, investigating violations, and ensuring access to effective remedies.
But what happens when national institutions fail to respond? Where can people turn when the State itself is responsible for violating their rights?
This question lies at the heart of the international human rights protection system.
Every October 24, United Nations Day commemorates the entry into force of the UN Charter in 1945. Established in the aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations represented a fundamental shift in how the international community understood relations between States and their responsibilities toward human dignity.
Yet more than eight decades later, a fundamental contradiction remains: human rights are recognized as universal, but the mechanisms designed to protect them still depend, to a considerable extent, on State cooperation and political will.
Understanding this tension is essential to assessing what the international community can actually do and where its responsibilities remain unfulfilled.
From National Rights to Universal Rights
For much of modern history, protecting individuals’ rights was considered primarily a domestic responsibility.
State sovereignty occupied a central place in international relations. Governments generally enjoyed broad authority over how they treated people within their borders, while opportunities for international intervention were limited.
The atrocities committed during the Second World War exposed the consequences of an international system unable to respond adequately to massive human rights violations.
In 1945, the United Nations was established. Three years later, in 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Declaration established a transformative principle: all human beings possess fundamental rights simply because they are human, regardless of nationality, origin, gender, religion, or social status.
This recognition introduced a new dimension to international relations.
How a State treats people under its jurisdiction could no longer be regarded as an exclusively domestic matter.
Over time, numerous international treaties established specific legal obligations concerning civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights.
However, recognizing a right does not automatically guarantee its protection.
The gap between legal commitments and their implementation remains one of the central challenges of the international human rights system.
Who Is Responsible for Protecting Human Rights?
The international human rights framework is built on a fundamental principle: States bear the primary responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights.
These responsibilities involve different obligations.
First, States must refrain from violating rights through their own actions.
Second, they must take appropriate measures to prevent abuses committed by third parties, including businesses and individuals.
Finally, they must develop laws, public policies, and institutions that allow people to effectively exercise their rights.
For example, guaranteeing the right to education involves more than simply allowing children to attend school. It also requires measures to ensure education is accessible, inclusive, and free from discrimination.
But when national mechanisms fail, the international system can provide additional tools for oversight, complaints, and accountability.
It is important to understand that the United Nations is not a world government. It does not have general authority to replace national governments, nor does it operate a universal judicial system that any individual can automatically access.
Its ability to act depends on the mandate of each institution, the applicable treaties, and the powers that States have accepted.
How Does the International Human Rights Protection System Work?
Although we often refer to the United Nations as a single institution, it is actually a complex system of bodies and mechanisms with different responsibilities.
Some monitor compliance with international treaties. Others investigate alleged violations, receive information from victims and organizations, or issue recommendations to governments.
The main mechanisms include the following.
1. The Human Rights Council
The Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental body composed of 47 Member States elected by the UN General Assembly.
Its mandate is to promote and protect human rights around the world.
The Council can discuss concerning situations, adopt resolutions, establish fact-finding missions, and appoint independent experts.
One of its most important mechanisms is the Universal Periodic Review.
2. The Universal Periodic Review: Every State Under Scrutiny
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a mechanism through which the human rights records of all United Nations Member States are periodically examined.
During this process, the State under review provides information about the measures it has taken to meet its international commitments.
Other States ask questions and make recommendations, while civil society organizations and national human rights institutions can contribute relevant information.
One particularly important feature of this mechanism is that every country is subject to review.
Canada, for example, participates in this process and receives recommendations concerning different aspects of its human rights situation.
However, the UPR also has significant limitations. Its recommendations are not judicial rulings, and their implementation depends on the actions taken by each State.
Its principal strength lies in creating a public, international process of evaluation, follow-up, and accountability.
3. International Human Rights Treaty Bodies
The international system also includes committees of independent experts responsible for monitoring the implementation of major human rights treaties.
These include bodies overseeing the Convention against Torture, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
These committees review reports submitted by States and publish observations and recommendations.
Some can also receive individual complaints, provided certain legal conditions are met.
For example, an individual who believes their rights have been violated may, in certain circumstances, submit a communication to an international committee after exhausting available domestic remedies.
However, not all States have accepted these procedures, and treaty body decisions do not have the same enforcement mechanisms as judgments issued by national courts.
4. Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts
The United Nations also works with independent experts who investigate specific human rights issues.
Some focus on themes such as freedom of expression, violence against women, adequate housing, or the rights of migrants.
Others have mandates concerning particular countries.
These experts can request information from governments, conduct official visits when the necessary conditions are met, prepare reports, and communicate concerns about possible violations.
They may also issue urgent communications in certain situations.
Their work is particularly important for documenting problems that receive insufficient attention or affect populations with limited political influence.
Nevertheless, their recommendations are not automatically binding, and their ability to investigate may be restricted by a lack of State cooperation.
Can Individuals Report Human Rights Violations to the UN?
Yes, but there is no single international mechanism capable of resolving every human rights violation.
The available options depend on the right involved, the country concerned, the applicable treaty, and the mechanism being used.
Some treaty bodies can examine individual complaints when the State has accepted their competence and the admissibility requirements have been met. These requirements generally include exhausting available domestic remedies, subject to certain exceptions.
Special Procedures, on the other hand, may receive information about specific situations without necessarily requiring domestic remedies to have been exhausted.
The Human Rights Council also has a complaint procedure designed to address consistent patterns of gross and reliably documented human rights violations.
It is essential to distinguish between submitting a complaint, obtaining an international assessment, and securing an effective remedy.
These processes can help document violations, increase pressure on governments, and encourage institutional change, but they do not guarantee an immediate solution.
Why Can’t the United Nations Stop Every Human Rights Violation?
This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions, and one of the most important for understanding how the organization works.
The United Nations is not an authority above all States with unlimited powers of intervention.
Its structure reflects the international order established after the Second World War and is based on principles such as State sovereignty, international cooperation, and the powers defined in its Charter.
This creates several limitations.
The first is dependence on State cooperation.
Many international mechanisms require governments to provide information, allow visits, implement recommendations, or adopt measures to provide remedies.
When a State refuses to cooperate, the ability of these mechanisms to act may be significantly reduced.
The second is the political nature of international decision-making.
The United Nations Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security.
It can adopt binding decisions and, under certain conditions, impose sanctions or authorize other measures provided for in the UN Charter.
However, its five permanent members — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — hold veto power over substantive decisions.
This means that any one of these countries can block certain resolutions, even when they have broad support from other Council members.
The result is a structural tension between the principle of sovereign equality among States and the unequal distribution of power within the Security Council.
The third limitation is the absence of universal enforcement mechanisms.
Many international decisions and recommendations cannot be directly enforced without the involvement of national institutions.
Even when serious violations are identified, translating international recognition into concrete action may require lengthy political, judicial, and diplomatic processes.
These limitations do not mean that international law lacks value. They mean that its effectiveness depends on a combination of legal norms, institutions, cooperation, and power relations.
What About International Courts?
A common misconception is that all international courts form part of the United Nations.
In reality, there are important distinctions.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It settles legal disputes between States within its jurisdiction and issues advisory opinions when requested by authorized bodies.
Individuals cannot directly bring cases before the ICJ.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), by contrast, is an institution independent of the United Nations.
Its role is to investigate and prosecute individuals accused of certain international crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and, under specific conditions, the crime of aggression.
Its jurisdiction is subject to legal requirements and does not automatically extend to every situation in the world.
There are also regional human rights protection systems, such as the Inter-American and European systems, which have their own monitoring mechanisms and, in certain cases, courts.
These institutions perform different but complementary functions.
Understanding their respective mandates helps avoid a mistaken expectation: that a single international court exists with the authority to resolve every human rights violation.
The Role of Civil Society: When Protection Begins from the Ground Up
If the effectiveness of international institutions depends partly on the willingness of States to cooperate, what role does civil society play?
A fundamental one.
Human rights organizations, social movements, universities, journalists, and affected communities play essential roles in documenting, exposing, and reporting violations.
In many cases, these actors collect testimonies, conduct research, submit alternative reports, and sustain public attention on situations that might otherwise remain invisible.
Civil society organizations can also contribute to international mechanisms through reports, communications, and advocacy activities.
Their participation helps connect people’s lived experiences with international institutions.
However, they also face significant challenges, including funding restrictions, threats, reprisals, legal obstacles, and unequal access to participation.
Strengthening international human rights protection therefore requires not only multilateral institutions but also independent, informed, and engaged civil societies.
Between Universal Promises and the Limits of Power
The international human rights system contains a tension that is difficult to resolve.
On the one hand, it affirms that human dignity does not depend on nationality or the will of a government.
On the other, it operates within an international order fundamentally organized around sovereign States.
This contradiction helps explain why the United Nations can play a meaningful role in establishing international standards, documenting violations, and promoting accountability without always having sufficient tools to guarantee immediate results.
Assessing its performance requires acknowledging both its contributions and its limitations.
International law has established principles, obligations, and mechanisms through which State decisions can be challenged against shared standards.
But no declaration, treaty, or international institution can entirely replace the need for independent judicial systems, effective public policies, and democratic accountability mechanisms within countries.
Protecting human rights requires action at multiple levels: local, national, regional, and international.
Understanding Our Rights Is Also a Way of Protecting Them
When we think about human rights, we often imagine major international declarations, courts, and multilateral organizations.
Yet protecting human rights also begins in everyday situations: when someone can access justice, when a community participates in decisions that affect it, or when an organization documents an instance of discrimination.
The United Nations cannot resolve every human rights violation on its own. But it provides mechanisms to make violations visible, establish accountability, and uphold international standards against which States can be assessed.
At Nexum Human Rights, we believe that understanding how these institutions work is a tool for strengthening civic participation and collective action.
Because human rights are not protected through international declarations alone. They also require accountable institutions, organized communities, and people who understand the tools available to demand their implementation.
Human rights are universal. Their effective protection, however, remains a collective responsibility that requires turning international commitments into concrete realities.
References and Further Reading
- United Nations (1945). Charter of the United Nations.
- United Nations General Assembly (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). International Human Rights Mechanisms.
- OHCHR. Universal Periodic Review.
- OHCHR. Human Rights Treaty Bodies — Individual Communications.
- United Nations Security Council. Voting System and the Right to Veto.
- International Court of Justice. The Court at a Glance.
- International Criminal Court. Understanding the International Criminal Court.
- OHCHR. Working with the United Nations Human Rights Programme: A Handbook for Civil Society.