Chapter 1 • International Human Rights Law and the Role of the Legal Professions: A General Introduction responsibility is strict in that States are responsible for violations of their treaty obligations even where they were not intentional. Human rights treaties are law-making treaties of an objective nature in that they create general norms that are the same for all States parties. These norms have to be applied by a State party irrespective of the state of implementation by other States parties. The traditional principle of reciprocity does not, in other words, apply to human rights treaties.15 The fact that human rights treaties have been concluded for the purpose of ensuring effective protection of the rights of the individual takes on particular importance in the course of the interpretative process. In explaining the meaning of the provisions of a human rights treaty, it is therefore essential for judges to adopt a teleological and holistic interpretative approach by searching for an interpretation that respects the rights and interests of the individual and is also logical in the context of the treaty as a whole. Examples of law-making treaties in the human rights field are the two International Covenants on Civil and Political and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which will be considered in further detail below. Suffice it to mention in this regard that the Committees created under the terms of each treaty to monitor its implementation have by now adopted many views and comments which provide valuable interpretative guidance to both national and international lawyers. Obligations incurred by States under international treaties must be performed in good faith. In international human rights law State responsibility is strict in that States are responsible for violations of their treaty obligations even where they were not intentional. A human rights treaty must be interpreted on the basis of a teleological and holistic approach by searching for an interpretation that respects the rights and interests of the individual and is also logical in the context of the treaty as a whole. 2.4.2 International customary law To follow the hierarchy of legal sources in article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, judges can in the second place apply “international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law”. International customary legal obligations binding upon States are thus created when there is evidence of both v acts amounting to a “settled practice” of States; and v a “belief that this practice is rendered obligatory by the existence of a rule of law requiring it” (opinio juris).16 15 Eur. Comm. HR, Application No. 788/60, Austria v. Italy, decision of 11 January 1961 on the admissibility, 4 Yearbook of the European Convention on Human Rights, p. 140. 16 North Sea Continental Shelf cases, Judgment, ICJ Reports 1969, p. 44, para. 77. 8 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers