Institutional Barriers to the Implementation of International Human Rights Law in Pakistan: Structural Challenges and Reform Pathways

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19042958

Abstract

The lack of consistency between the international human rights pledges made by Pakistan and their local application continues to pose a major challenge to the legal and administrative systems of the state. Although core treaties have been ratified such as; ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW and CAT, there are still serious structural barriers that are hindering effective implementation of these treaties. This paper is based on the methodology of doctrinal and analytical approach and presents the view that the implementation deficit is not a major outcome of ideological opposition, but rather a reflection of institutional shortcomings inherent in the constitutional design and governance structure in Pakistan. The four barriers are found to be linked and they include lack of a comprehensive treaty incorporation law, federal-provincial division after 18 th Constitutional Amendment, structural limitation of oversight institutions and lack of reporting arrangements. The discussion indicates that the two-sidedness of the legal framework in Pakistan results in a massive gap where the international standards cannot be adjudicated unless certain changes are enacted into law. Moreover, decentralization of power after the 18th Amendment has unintentionally created coordination difficulties as well as disparity in provincial capacity making it hard to implement the treaty uniformly across the federation. To seal this gap, the article suggests a package of constitutionally viable reforms, such as a full Human Rights Treaty Implementation Act, national coordination council on the implementation of the treaty, and a centralized digital system of monitoring. Finally, the paper hypothesizes that sustainable adherence to international human rights law requires a fundamental reconstruction of the institutional structure of the state to break out of symbolic ratification and on to substantive enforcement and entrenchment of human rights governance in the structural framework of the state.