With the proliferation of international organisations and their ever increasing role in a wide range of policy fields, situations multiply in which human rights are threatened or violated through the actions, operations or policies of such organisations. The present book, with carefully selected contributions from many prominent scholars and practitioners, is the first to explore these problems in a comprehensive manner and to examine the accountability mechanisms that are available. In a first, cross-cutting part, the contributions study general concepts, such as the accountability of international organisations as an evolving legal concept, international organisations as independent actors, the logic of sliding scales in the law of international responsibility and the relations between the international organisations and their Member States in regard to their respective obligations and responsibilities. The subsequent parts of the book focus on the accountability for human rights violations attributable to international organisations in four areas: (i) peace and humanitarian operations; (ii) international civil administration; (iii) economic governance; and (iv) staff of international organisations.

Although rooted in a similar ideal, human rights (IHRL), international criminal law (ICL) and international humanitarian law (IHL) are separate fields of law, best represented as circles, each of which overlaps with the other two. However human rights often seems to absorb the other two, while in other situations, the lines between human rights law and its next door neighbours are blurred or contested.This volume consists of three main parts. The first main part explores the convergences and divergences between IHL and/or IHRL on the one hand, and ICL stricto sensu on the other hand. The second part investigates the convergences and divergences between IHRL and transnational crimes, or ICL in the broader sense, which suppresses crimes such as drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings and corruption through international treaties providing for domestic enforcement. The last main part of this volume provides the reader with novel and original insights as to how IHRL and IHL converge and diverge by considering if and how the norms of other branches of international law come into play and how the European Court of Human Rights has engaged with the sometimes contradicting norms of IHL. It furthermore analyses the relationship between the specific IHL and IHRL norms which prohibit arbitrary displacement and maps their interaction. Finally, the effectiveness of States' investigations of war crimes committed by their armed forces is evaluated by emphasising attention to the relevant standards developed within IHRL, since IHL does not indicate specific criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of an investigation.