Human Rights Committee discusses draft General Comment on the right to life

Human Rights Committee
MEETING SUMMARY 

 03 July 2018

The Human Rights Committee this morning resumed its discussion of the draft General Comment No. 36 on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on the right to life.

The Committee adopted paragraphs 14 and 15 from the General Remarks section; paragraph 16, 17, 19, 20, and 21 from the section on The Prohibition against Arbitrary Deprivation of Life; and started consideration of the section three on The Duty to Protect Life.  The Committee decided that the consideration of the paragraphs 18 and 22 of draft General Comment would continue on Friday, 6 July, at 3 p.m.

Mr. Yuval Shany Committee Rapporteur for the draft General Comment, presented the comments and proposals received from States, relevant organizations and individuals, and then moderated the discussions in which Committee Experts addressed the issues and concerns raised by States and other contributors to draft General Comment.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Committee adopted paragraph 14 on less-lethal weapons designed for use by law-enforcement agents and soldiers charged with law-enforcement missions, including electro-muscular disruption devices (Tasers), as amended after the debate on 5 April 2018.

The Committee went on to consider paragraph 15 on wide-ranging obligations of States to respect and ensure the right to life, and which contributed to regulating the relationship with the first the Optional Protocol to the Covenant.  There were concerns that the text was opening up the Optional Protocol to a very large numbers of complaints, and that the inclusion of the notion of a “victim” restricted the scope of the text, and also restricted access to the Committee by individuals whose rights were violated by the actions of a State party.  Some Experts raised the question whether paragraph 15 should be kept at all, and, after much discussion, Experts agreed that it did not add substantive value and also agreed to remove paragraph 15 from the draft General Comment.

Turning to the second section titled The Prohibition against Arbitrary Deprivation of Life, Experts considered paragraph 16 on non-arbitrary deprivation of life, hearing a proposal to delete the first sentence which might be misunderstood by States, while others favored keeping it as it clarified the issue of absoluteness.  An Expert suggested that the Committee clarified its meaning of “arbitrary”, and several Experts suggested keeping the word because it represented a question of substantive law and encompassed all violations of the treaty by States.  Committee Experts agreed to keep the first sentence, and also agreed to accept a suggestion made by Amnesty International to include a reference to other international instruments regarding the death penalty and a requirement to carry out the death penalty in a non-arbitrary manner, which was addressed to States that used this sanction but were not a party to any agreement on the death penalty.

Paragraph 17 explained the balance between the duty to protect the right to life by law and the context of arbitrariness, Mr. Shany noted.  To deprive someone of their life without a legal basis was an arbitrary act and represented a violation of the law by the State party, he explained.  A suggestion was made to clarify the difference between ‘illegal’ and ‘arbitrary’ and to keep them separate, otherwise the Committee risked taking away from the law instead of adding to it.  The Committee adopted paragraph 17 as amended.

The Committee then turned to paragraph 18, which dealt with the principles of self-defence and proportionality.  After a lengthy debate including on the words ‘as far as possible’, under footnote 40, basic principles on non-lethal neutralisation, and on applying force that ‘could be’ lethal, Mr. Shany decided to continue the debate on a new amended version of paragraph 18 at the next meeting on draft General Comment on Friday, 6 July.

Paragraph 19, which stated the expectations from States parties to “take all necessary measures intended to prevent arbitrary deprivations of life by their law-enforcement organs” was adopted with minor amendments, as was paragraph 20 which defined the obligations of States to regulate by law procedures regulating an activity that might result in deprivation of life, such as for example the conditions for use of lethal weapons by the police.

The Committee adopted paragraph 21, which considered that “the deprivation of life of individuals through acts or omissions that violated provisions of the Covenant other than article 6, was, as a rule, arbitrary in nature”, without modifications.

At the end of the meeting, the Committee began the consideration of section titled The Duty to Protect Life, starting with paragraph 22 which provided that the right to life “shall be protected by law” and which required States parties to “establish a legal framework to ensure the full enjoyment of the right to life by all individuals”.  

The Committee will continue the discussion on draft General Comment N° 36 at 3 p.m. on Friday, 6 July.  The drafting of the General Comment started on 14 July 2015 with a half day of general discussion.  The first reading of the draft was completed at the Committee’s one hundred and twentieth session in July 2017.  The second reading of the draft took place on 27 October 2017 (summary), and was followed by discussions on 1 November 2017 (summary), 2 November 2017 (summary), 28 March 2018 (summary), and on 5 April 2018 (summary).  Further information about draft General Comment No. 36 can be obtained here.

All the documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, can be found on the session’s webpage.  The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings is available via the following link: http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/.


The Committee will resume at 3 p.m. today, 3 July, to start the consideration of the initial report of Bahrain (CCPR/C/BHR/1) on how it implements the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
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For use of the information media; not an official record
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