The United Nations Commission on Human Rights 'A Very Great Enterprise'

In this book, John P. Pace provides the most complete account to-date of the United Nations human rights programme, both in substance and in chronological breadth. Pace worked at the heart of this programme for over thirty years, including as the Secretary of the Commission on Human Rights, and Coordinator of the World Conference on Human Rights, which took place in Vienna in 1993. He traces the issues taken up by the Commission after its launch in 1946, and the methods undertaken to enhance absorption and domestication of international human rights standards. He lays out the special procedures carried out by the UN, and the emergence of international human rights law. The book then turns to the establishment of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the mainstreaming of human rights across the United Nations system, eventually leading to the establishment of the Human Rights Council to replace the Commission in 2006. Many of the problems we face today, including conflict, poverty, and environmental issues, have their roots in human rights problems. This book identifies what has been done at the international level in the past, and points towards what still needs to be done for the future.

1 - The Great Enterprise Gets Under Way (1946 - 1955)
2 - The Agenda (1946)
3 - The Approaches (1955)
4 - Managing the Agenda: Coordination (1955) and Rationalisation (1992)
5 - The 'Incubation' of Economic Social and Cultural Rights (1968 - 1992)
6 - The Emergence of Ad Hoc or Special Procedures (1966)
7 - The Emergence of International Human Rights Law (1969)
8 - The Great Enterprise Enters the Modern Era (1987 - 2005)
9 - The Great Enterprise Today (2006)
10 - "All Human Beings" and the Great Enterprise

John Pace is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales and Adjunct at the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney. His UN career (1966-1999) coincided with the introduction of special procedures and the first human rights investigations. As human rights activities evolved, John was given responsibility for other, new, activities including the technical cooperation and the external relations programmes. As part of these responsibilities, the author travelled to many countries and witnessed first-hand the effect of human rights problems and the ongoing need to address them. His extensive field experience was balanced by his responsibility for the Commission on Human Rights as its Secretary (1978-1994), and as Coordinator of the World Conference on Human Rights which took place in Vienna in 1993. The author has continued to build his human rights experiences in the last twenty years, undertaking various responsibilities such as in Indonesia, Iraq, and Liberia among many others. John's current priorities include human rights of women, migrant workers and asylum seekers, administration of justice issues, and human rights in countering terrorism.