On 16 December 1966 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted three important instruments concerning human rights. These were the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both adopted unanimously; and also an Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was adopted by majority vote. The adoption of these texts represents one more step in the slow, but on the whole steady, progress towards an International Bill of Rights. When this project was first mooted after the Second World War, it was realized that at least three distinct stages would be necessary. First, there would have to be broad international agreement on the rights to be enjoyed by every human being. Secondly, States would have to accept a definite legal obligation to afford these rights to all persons within their jurisdiction. Thirdly, there would have to be provisions for enforcement.

These proposals sound simple enough, but it is as well to realize how revolutionary they were at the time and how many and serious are the obstacles that still have to be overcome before they can be implemented.

Traditional international law was a legal system applying essentially between States, although it made provision also for what the International Court of Justice has called ‘instances of action upon the international plane by certain entities which are not States’. Such instances have been performed by a miscellaneous collection of entities including the Holy See, the Sovereign Order of Malta, international institutions such as the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies, and even rebels granted belligerent status without yet having been recognized as States.