Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 February 2017
After six years of study by its Committee on the Enforcement of Human Rights Law, the sixty-fourth Conference of the International Law Association, held in Queensland, Australia, from August 19 to 25, 1990, approved by consensus a set of standards to assist human rights bodies in monitoring states of emergency. These standards, designated the Queensland Guidelines for Bodies Monitoring Respect for Human Rights during States of Emergency, complement on the enforcement side the substantive norms found in the Paris Minimum Standards of Human Rights Norms in a State of Emergency, adopted by the ILA in 1984.
1 Chaired by the undersigned, with Prof. Joan Fitzpatrick of the United States as rapporteur and members from Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, Egypt, Finland, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Ghana, Guyana, Hungary, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Nepal, Norway, Poland, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Yugoslavia.
2 The committee’s brief final report and draft guidelines were published in ILA, Report of the 64th Conference Held at Queensland 12–13, 232–36 (1990). For the extensive research and analysis leading up to the final report and draft guidelines, see the committee’s first and second interim reports found in ILA, Report of the 62nd Conference Held at Seoul 108–86 (1986), and ILA, Report of the 63rd Conference Held at Warsaw 129–209 (1988). Prof. Fitzpatrick currently is completing a monograph analyzing the Queensland Guidelines and summarizing and updating the substance of the committee’s three reports for publication in the Procedural Aspects of International Law Series.
3 ILA, Report of the 61st Conference Held at Paris 56–97 (1984). The Paris Minimum Standards are reprinted in 79 AJIL 1072, 1073–81 (1985). For an excellent exegesis of the standards by their principal draftsman, see S. Chowdhury, Rule of Law in a State of Emergency (1989).
4 On de facto emergencies, see ILA, Report of the 63rd Conference, supra note 2, at 143–59.
5 Especially the Special Rapporteur on States of Emergency of the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. See Despouy, Third Annual Report and List of States Which … Have Proclaimed, Extended, or Terminated a State of Emergency, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1989/30/Rev.2(1990).