Question: If “No,” what role does the
United Nations have in the process?
Answer: The United Nations’ Third Com-
mittee handles proposed treaties addressing
issues of human rights. It is the venue where
the world’s 193 nation-states come togeth-
er to vet human rights conventions. An ex-
ample is the land mine treaty, championed
by Vermont-based Nobel Peace Prize win-
ner Jodie Williams. Bottom line: we need to
have the conversation in the UN Third Com-
mittee, leading to the implementation of
a non-UN-based WCHR.
Question: Will the decisions of the WCHR
be enforced in the countries to which action
is directed, and if not, what’s the point?
Answer: The definitive answer to this ques-
tion was offered by Chief Justice Carl Ashok
Singh of Guyana at the 2013 Chief Justice
conference in Lucknow. It was roughly as fol-
lows: “Just because a decision of a court is
not 100% enforceable does not mean that it
is worthless.” This point is echoed by offi-
cials of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Inter-
national, and other human rights NGOs. And
even though the world is still comprised of
nation-states...and probably always will be...
and possibly should be...their national laws
are constantly becoming more informed and
inhabited by the growing body of public in-
ternational law. This is in part a byproduct
nation-states’ ever-increasing accession to
treaties, and in part a byproduct of the grow-
www.vtbar.org
ing body of case law that emanates from the
judicial and quasi-judicial bodies as they ap-
ply treaty-derived law to the cases before
them. In addition, in an increasingly inter-
connected world, where news travels faster
and more freely all the time, “public sham-
ing,” is a powerful force in educating the
public and impacting the political process.
Question: If the International Criminal
Court (ICC) is in distress, what’s to say that
the creation of yet another supranational
court has a chance?
Answer: The ICC and the proposed WCHR
perform entirely different functions. The
ICC’s narrow mission is to prosecute individ-
uals (typically, former heads of state) for their
roles in war crimes, genocide and crimes
against humanity. The impact, if the ICC is
successful, is the criminal punishment of a
single individual. Without diminishing this
worthy goal, the mission of the WCHR is far
broader, and holds the potential of having a
far more impactful outcome for large groups
of individuals whose human rights are being
denied as a result of conditions that violate
accepted human rights norms.
Question: What is the route through which
the adoption of the Treaty of Lucknow, and
thereby, the creation of the World Court of
Human Rights, can be made a reality?
Answer: The realization of a treaty through
the United Nations process occurs in a man-
ner that is analogous to the way in which leg-
islation is enacted in a state or national legis-
lative body. Bills (or treaties) are introduced
by sponsors, and are taken up by the com-
mittees which have jurisdiction over the rel-
evant subject matter. The more numerous
the sponsors, and the more influential, the
greater the likelihood that a particular bill (or
treaty) will become law. Proposed treaties
are to the UN what bills are to a state or fed-
eral legislative body. The present stage of
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2016-17
our work is to mobilize a critical mass of na-
tions behind the UN Third Committee pro-
cess. The Chief Justices have pledged to
urge their national chief executives to do so.
Question: Which nation-states do we envi-
sion as lead “sponsors” of the Treaty of Luc-
know?
Answer: In part because we are physical-
ly located in the United States, one of our
early focuses was to get the support of the
United States administration. And because
the Chief Justices meet annually in India, an-
other of initial focuses was to get the sup-
port of the Indian administration. Both the
United States and India have long-standing
commitments to the protection of interna-
tional human rights. In addition, the relative-
ly recent meeting between President Obama
and Prime Minister Modi seemed to set the
stage for historic cooperation in this arena.
For these reasons, the WCHR Development
Project named an Indian Country Director,
Vishal Bhatnagar, and an Indian Student Di-
rector, Neel Lohit Pandy, who have helped to
spread the word throughout certain key con-
stituencies, and to the public in general.
fective supranational court adjudicating dis-
putes which are, in the vast majority of cas-
es, between and among nation-states, who
agree to submit the dispute to the ICJ. What
the ICJ lacks, for the most part, is a venue
for affected individuals, or more importantly,
classes of individuals (such as 6 million Syrian
refugees) within which they can obtain judi-
cial review of a claimed human rights-related
violation.
Some Disappointments to Date
Will India Agree to Be a Lead Sponsor?
In Decembe