The Islamic, Asian and CIS Perspectives on Human Rights Protection

This chapter presents lesser-known non-European regional systems of human rights protection, which, unlike the Inter-American System of Human Rights Protection and the African System of Human Rights Protection, do not have mechanisms for individual complaints and a court-type body for the control of undertaken commitments. The regional systems of Arab-Muslims, ASEAN, SAARC and CIS will be discussed. All the mentioned regional systems (except SAARC and CIS) were built as a supplement to the universal system of human rights protection, yet partly in opposition to it, based on Muslim or Asian values. Therefore, the universalism of fundamental rights was undermined in favour of particularism, the conditioning of these rights and their content and scope by civilisational, cultural and religious conditions of individual countries. Currently, the acts in force in these systems concerning the protection of fundamental rights differ in their possible scope of limitations of fundamental rights, foundations and the scope of freedom of the States Parties. The systems provide limited mechanisms for monitoring the undertaken human rights commitments; however, they are being expanded. Among the systems discussed, the OIC and ASEAN systems have the greatest practical significance, while the GCC has the smallest.

Keywords: Fundamental rights, human rights particularism, ASEAN, Arab-Muslim system, SAARC, CIS