The central issue that dominates the study of the international law of human rights is that of enforcement. The presumption is that even though States draft and ratify treaties binding themselves, as a matter of international law, to the protection and promotion of human rights, there are no real reciprocal benefits to be derived from compliance such that it is unrealistic to expect States to carry out those obligations in good faith. Hence, the study of the international law of human rights has tended to focus primarily upon the work of the various human rights treaty bodies which undertake supervisory roles over the implementation of the treaty obligations.

Radioactive waste is not at present, at least officially, dumped at sea or disposed of into the seabed. At the regional level, several treaties prohibit such disposal. At the global level, the dumping at sea of high-level radioactive waste and the disposal of all radioactive waste in Antarctica, including the ocean areas south of 60 degrees south latitude, are prohibited by international law. The dumping at sea of low-level radioactive waste and the sub-seabed disposal of all radioactive waste (hereinafter also referred to as the ocean disposal options), at the global level, are subject to legally non-binding and temporary suspensions or moratoria. It is thus that the ocean disposal options remain on the international agenda and that the permissibility of using these options remains an issue of debate.

‘There are estimated to be some 300 million indigenous people in 70 countries around the world. Among the most defenceless of all the victims of human rights violations, they have paid a terrible price for contact with the dominant society. They have been massacred and terrorized to force them from their ancestral lands, caught up in bitter civil conflicts and left without redress for the abuses they suffer. Their supporters have also suffered human rights violations. The United Nations has designated 1993 as the International Year of the World's Indigenous People. The International Year will be commemorated at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna this June. Amnesty International is calling on governments of countries where indigenous people reside to initiate an independent national review in 1993 of the extent to which indigenous peoples' fundamental human rights are respected. 1992 was the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. While official commemorations were held throughout the region, indigenous groups, backed by human rights organizations, used the occasion to publicize the violations, the discrimination and the displacement that indigenous peoples have suffered. Yet despite the publicity and the focus on the plight of indigenous people, it appears that governments in the Americas have taken few practical steps to protect indigenous rights. Unless the international community takes urgent steps, there is a real danger that the UN's International Year will also pass without any significant progress towards protecting the human rights of indigenous peoples throughout the world.