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Civil and Political Rights

Though abuses still occur in various parts of the world today, civil and political rights have been fairly succesfully implemented in the world.

As required by the CCPR, all states must send a report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee every five years detailing the domestic laws that protect civil and political rights. States are also required to describe the domestic provisions that either enhance or inhibit an individual's rights.

The Human Rights Committee then sends a report to the UN General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council based on the state reports from that year. Because the Human Rights Committee's report is accessible by the international community, states with poor human rights records can be pressured into improving their attitude towards civil and political rights.

There are three other ways to implement and enforce civil and political rights. First, Article 41 of the CCPR declares that "A State Party to the present Covenant may at any time declare under this article that it recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications to the effect that a State Party claims that another State Party is not fulfilling its obligations under the present Covenant". Thus, a state that has made an optional Article 41 declaration can report to the Human Rights Committee that another state that has also made an Article 41 declaration is abusing civil and political rights. The Human Rights Committeee can then choose to look into the situation and try to find a solution. This method, however, is rarely used.

Another method of enforcement lies in Resolution 1503 of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Under the resolution, individuals and non governmental organizations are also allowed to submit complaints of the violation of human rights of states. When received, the complaints are merely filed for record-keeping. However, if a large number of complaints against a certain state are received in a short period of time, the United Nations may decide to investigate. This method of enforcement has limited power, since the states violating human rights standards are not actually forced, but rather, only pressured into improving.

Finally, individuals are allowed to complain about their own country's human rights violations at the international level, if that state has agreed to the Optional Protocol to the CCPR. As its name suggests, states are not obliged to ratify the Optional Protocol, and only states that have ratified the protocol may be petitioned against by individuals. This method of enforcement is popular because individuals are given more power, and that human rights violations can be dealt with at the international level, instead of just the domestic level. However, the Protocol has certain significant limitations. For instance, only complaints regarding human rights violations against an individual, not a group, can be filed. In addition, all the possibilities to ameliorate the situation domestically must be exhausted. If a complaint is approved by the Human Rights Committee, the Committee will ask for a submission of information from the state and individual. Following this, the Committee will rule whether the state has violated the rights set out in the CCPR or not. Though ultimately, the Committee's decision is not legally binding, most states will set out to resolve the situation. Other states, however, blatantly ignore the Committee's ruling.