The Place of Human Rights Treaties - in the Polish Legal Order

IV. The Current Human Rights Position

Aside from ILO Conventions, Poland has ratified 14 of 22 universal treaties related to human rights. Among them are the two UN covenants. Poland has, however, refused to ratify the right to individual petitions and state-to-state complaints. Poland's failure to do so is related to the mistrust and reluctance which characterized the attitude of all communist countries to international control over human rights.

The political upheaval of 1989-90 in Poland removed any ideological obstacles preventing the ratification of these procedures and cooperation in the adoption of new ones. A declaration concerning Article 41 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was made in September 1990 and state officials have announced on several occasions that Poland will ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. One can also expect in the near future the ratification of a number of international treaties such as the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, as well as some ILO Conventions dealing with social matters.

The participation of Poland in the European system of human rights protection constitutes a separate problem. According to the decision taken by the Parliamentary Assembly in the last days of September 1990, Poland is expected to become a member of the Council of Europe immediately after the democratic general elections which are taking place in the autumn of 1991. The representatives of the Polish Government and Parliament have declared many times the intention of Poland to ratify the European Convention of Human Rights, which would involve consenting to its implementation procedures. Taking into account the prediction canvassed here that international law will become directly applicable within the Polish legal order, one can expect that Poland will soon fall into line with the opinion of the European Court of Human Rights as regards the optimal means of ensuring the enforcement of the Convention:

[The] intention [to secure rights and freedoms set out in Section I of the ECHR] finds a particularly faithful reflection in those instances where the Convention has been incorporated into domestic law.³⁰

30 Ireland v. Great Britain, A/25, 90-91.

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