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Protecting the right to life in protracted conflicts: The existence and dignity dimensions of General Comment 36

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2020

Mona Rishmawi
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Abstract

With a focus on situations of protracted conflict, this article explores the new horizons offered by the recent explanation by the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the right to life in its General Comment 36. The freshly formulated contours of this right not only present normative clarity but are also valuable for conflict management and resolution. Considering the articulation by the Human Rights Committee, we can now see two dimensions of this right: existence and dignity. Although the existence dimension is not new, one now finds additional insights concerning the legality, transparency and accountability of the use of lethal force that have particular relevance to armed conflict. The new dignity dimension has practical implications for the conditions of life in protracted conflicts, taking us beyond norms to the policy spheres of humanitarian action and development. Tracing the origins of the term “protracted conflict” to the late Lebanese scholar Edward Azar, the article also introduces the reader to some of his work and thinking.

Keywords

dignitygrievancesHuman Rights Committeehuman rightsidentityidentity conflictsinvestigationlaw enforcementlethal forceprotracted conflictright to lifeSustainable Development Goals
Type
The law
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 101 , Issue 912: Protracted conflict , December 2019 , pp. 1149 - 1169
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of ICRC

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Footnotes

*

The author writes in her personal capacity. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or any other institution.

References

1 Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 36, “Article 6 (Right to Life)”, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/36, 30 October 2018 (General Comment 36).

2 Ibid., para. 3.

3 Ibid.., Section V.

4 According to the Geneva Academy, in 2018, at least sixty-nine armed conflicts occurred on the territory of thirty States. A large number of them were of long duration, lasting for more than a decade. Annyssa Bellal (ed.), The War Report: Armed Conflicts in 2018, Geneva Academy, April 2019, available at: www.geneva-academy.ch/joomlatools-files/docman-files/The%20War%20Report%202018.pdf (all internet references were accessed in June 2020).

5 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2187 UNTS 90, 17 July 1998 (entered into force 1 July 2002), Art. 8(2)(f).

6 In Tadić, the ICTY states that “an armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups within a State. International humanitarian law applies from the initiation of such armed conflicts and extends beyond the cessation of hostilities until a general conclusion of peace is reached; or, in the case of internal conflicts, a peaceful settlement is achieved. Until that moment, international humanitarian law continues to apply in the whole territory of the warring States or, in the case of internal conflicts, the whole territory under the control of a party, whether or not actual combat takes place there.” ICTY, Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić, Case No. IT-94-1-T, Decision on Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, 2 October 1995, para. 70, available at: www.icty.org/x/cases/tadic/acdec/en/51002.htm.

7 ICTY, Prosecutor v. Ramush Haradinaj et al., Case No. IT-04-84-T, Judgment, 3 April 2008, para.49, available at: www.icty.org/x/cases/haradinaj/tjug/en/080403.pdf.

8 Ibid.

9 “Annex: Leiden Policy Recommendations on Counter-Terrorism and International Law”, in Larissa van den Herik and Nico Schrijver (eds), Counter-Terrorism Strategies in a Fragmented International Legal Order: Meeting the Challenges, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013, p. 721, para. 62.

10 ICRC, Protracted Conflict and Humanitarian Action: Some Recent ICRC Experiences, Geneva, 2016, p. 9.

11 “Edward E. Azar, 53, A Middle East Scholar”, obituary, New York Times, 21 June 1991, p. B7 (Azar Obituary).

12 Azar, Edward E. and Burton, John Wear (eds), International Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, Wheatsheaf Books, Sussex, and Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO, 1986Google Scholar (copy available from the present author); Edward E. Azar, The Management of Protracted Social Conflict: Theory and Cases, Dartmouth Publishing Company, Dartmouth, 1990 (copy available at the library of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva).

13 E. E. Azar, The Management of Protracted Social Conflict, above note 12, citing his own early work from 1986, 1984 and 1979.

14 Ibid., p. 36.

15 Ibid.

16 E. E. Azar and J. W. Burton (eds), International Conflict Resolution, above note 12, p. 2.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid., pp. 28–29.

19 E. E. Azar, The Management of Protracted Social Conflict, above note 12, p. 2.

20 E. E. Azar and J. W. Burton (eds), International Conflict Resolution, above note 12, p. 30.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 29.

23 The conflicts he studied include Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and the Falkland/Malvinas. Ibid., p. 5.

24 E. E. Azar, The Management of Protracted Social Conflict, above note 12, p. 31.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., pp. 31–32.

27 E. E. Azar and J. W. Burton (eds), International Conflict Resolution, above note 12, p. 2.

28 E. E. Azar, The Management of Protracted Social Conflict, above note 12, p. 33.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 E. E. Azar and J. W. Burton (eds), International Conflict Resolution, above note 12, Chap. 1.

32 Ibid., p. 2.

33 Azar Obituary, above note 11. In an article published in 2005, Oliver Ramsbotham paid tribute to Azar, thirteen years after the latter's death. He assessed the originality and significance of Azar's work, proposing that it continues to offer pointers for understanding major armed conflicts. See Ramsbotham, Oliver, “The Analysis of Protracted Social Conflict: A Tribute to Edward Azar”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 10.

35 ICJ, Case Concerning Ahmadou Sadio Diallo, Judgment, 30 November 2010, para. 66, available at: www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/103/103-20101130-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf.

36 Ibid.

37 On 27 September 2019, the UN Human Rights Council rejected an amendment to its resolution on the death penalty by a vote of eighteen for, twenty-three against, and five abstentions. The rejected text read: “Affirming that the general comments adopted by the treaty bodies are not legally binding on State parties, and do not constitute binding interpretations of treaties”. Amendment L.46 to UN Doc. A/HRC/42/L.37.

38 See, for example, ILC, Report of the International Law Commission, Seventy-first Session (29 April–7 June and 8 July–9 August 2019), UN Doc. A/74/10, 2019.

39 General Comment No. 6, adopted by the Human Rights Committee at its 16th Session in 1982, and General Comment No. 14, adopted at its 23rd Session in 1984.

40 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 3.

41 Ibid., para. 50.

42 Ibid., para. 10.

43 Ibid., para. 2.

44 See: https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?typed=arbitrary&type=1.

45 See Human Rights Committee, Gorji-Dinka v. Cameroon, Communication No. 1134/2002, 17 March 2005, para. 5.1; Human Rights Committee, Van Alphen v. Netherlands, Communication No. 305/1988, 23 July 1990, para. 5.8 (footnote added).

46 Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 35, “Article 9 (Liberty and Security of Person)”, UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/35, 16 December 2014, para. 12.

47 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 12.

48 Ibid., para. 13.

49 Ibid.

50 See, for example, the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, adopted by the Eighth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, 1990 (BPUFF), para. 9, available at: www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/useofforceandfirearms.aspx.

51 Ibid.

52 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 13.

53 Ibid., para. 13.

54 Ibid., para. 13.

55 Ibid., para. 12.

56 Principle 9 of the BPUFF, above note 50, states: “Law enforcement officials shall not use firearms against persons except in self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, to prevent the perpetration of a particularly serious crime involving grave threat to life, to arrest a person presenting such a danger and resisting their authority, or to prevent his or her escape, and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. In any event, intentional lethal use of firearms may only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”

57 See Inter-Parliamentary Union and ICRC, International Humanitarian Law, Handbook for Parliamentarians No. 25, 2016.

58 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 64.

59 Ibid.

60 The footnote to the relevant section of General Comment 36 refers to UN Doc. A/HRC/11/2/Add.4, 6 May 2009, para. 89.

61 Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations on the Fourth Periodic Report of the United States of America, UN Doc. CCPR/C/USA/CO/4, 23 April 2014, para. 9.

62 See Marco Sassòli, International Humanitarian Law: Rules, Controversies, and Solutions to Problems Arising in Warfare, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2019, p. 48.

63 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 13.

64 Ibid.

65 ICJ, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, 8 July 1996, para. 25, available at: www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/95/095-19960708-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf.

66 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 27.

67 Ibid., para. 12.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 See BPUFF, above note 50, para. 9.

71 Marco Sassòli, above note 62, pp. 53–54.

72 Andrew Clapham, “The Limits of Human Rights in Times of Armed Conflict and Other Situations of Armed Violence”, in Bardo Fassbender and Knut Traisbach (eds), The Limits of Human Rights, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019, p. 307.

73 ICJ, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia), Judgment, 3 February 2015, para. 474, available at: www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/118/118-20150203-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf.

74 A. Clapham, above note 72, p. 307.

75 General Comment 36, above note 1, fn. 259.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid., para. 28.

78 Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death, 2016 (Minnesota Protocol), paras 20–22, available at: www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/MinnesotaProtocol.pdf.

79 Ibid., para. 20.

80 Ibid., pp. 7–10.

81 Ibid., para. 20.

82 Ibid.

83 Human Rights Committee, Consideration of Reports Submitted by States Parties under Article 40 of the Covenant: Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee, UN Doc. CCPR/C/ISR/CO/3, 3 September 2010, para. 9.

84 Minnesota Protocol, above note 78, para. 21.

85 Ibid.

86 Ibid. See also Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Commissions of Inquiry and Fact-Finding Missions on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Guidance and Practice, New York and Geneva, 2015, available at: www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/CoI_Guidance_and_Practice.pdf; Geneva Academy and ICRC, Guidelines on Investigating Violations of International Humanitarian Law, Geneva, September 2019, available at: www.geneva-academy.ch/joomlatools-files/docman-files/Guidelines%20on%20Investigating%20Violations%20of%20IHL.pdf.

87 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 3.

88 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNGA Res. 217 A (III), 10 December 1948, Preamble.

89 See above note 39.

90 General Comment 36, above note 1, paras 9, 26, 50, 62.

91 Jack Donnelly, “Human Rights and Human Dignity”, in Protecting Dignity: An Agenda for Human Rights, Swiss Initiative to Commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR, June 2009.

92 Wolfgang Saxon, “Oscar Schachter, 88, Law Professor and U.N. Aide”, obituary, New York Times, 17 December 2003.

93 See Schachter, Oscar, “Human Dignity as a Normative Concept”, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 77, No. 4, 1983CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Ibid., p. 849.

95 Ibid., pp. 848–854.

96 Ibid.

97 Ibid., pp. 849.

98 Ibid.

99 UDHR, Preamble and Art. 1.

100 ICCPR, Art. 10.

101 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Art. 13.

102 See, for instance, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Preamble and Arts 23, 28, 37, 39, 40.

103 See, for instance, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Preamble and Arts 1, 3, 8, 24.

104 Dignity is a common principle underlining the complementary relationship between human rights and IHL, as the ICRC president has stated. He has noted that IHL and international human rights law both “hold some of the answers, and they are crystalized in the principles of impartiality, non-discrimination, inclusion, equality and in humanity, dignity and agency.” ICRC, “The Law Does Not Discriminate: Neither Can We”, President's Address to the Human Rights Council, 26 February 2019, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/law-does-not-discriminate-nor-can-we.

105 Additional Protocol I (AP I), Art. 75; Additional Protocol II (AP II), Art. 4. See also the ICJ Nicaragua case.

106 AP I, Art. 75; AP II, Art. 4.

107 AP I specifies that “practices involving outrages upon personal dignity, based on racial discrimination” are a grave breach of the Protocol, when committed wilfully and in violation of the Geneva Conventions or the Protocol (Art. (85(4)(c)). Outrages upon personal dignity are always prohibited, “whether committed by civilian or military agents” (Art. 75(2)(6)).

108 Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck (eds), Customary International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 1: Rules, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, Rules 87, 90, 113, available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1.

109 Ibid., Rules 90, 93, 98, 148, 187.

110 See, for example, Global Protection Cluster, GBV Sub-Cluster Turkey (Syria), “Dignity Kit Guidance Note”, Turkey, 2015, available at: www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/documents/files/dignity_kits_guidance_note_en.pdf.

111 Christophe McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights”, European Journal of International Law, Vol. 19, No. 4, 2008.

112 Article 4 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) gives the Tribunal explicit jurisdiction over violations of common Article 3 and AP II.

113 In several pieces of ICTY and ICTR jurisprudence, the various chambers refer to “the right to respect for dignity”. See, for example, ICTY, Prosecutor v. Vojislav Šešelj, Case No. MICT-16-99-A, Judgment (Appeals Chamber), 11 April 2018, para. 163; ICTR, Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al. (Media Case), Case No. ICTR-99-52-A, Judgment (Appeals Chamber), 28 November 2007, paras 986–987. Also see: http://cld.irmct.org/advanced-search/?&keyword=dignity.

114 ICTY, Šešelj, above note 113; ICTR, Nahimana, above note 113.

115 ICTY, Prosecutor v. Vlastimir Đorđević, Case No. IT-05-87/1-A; ICTR, Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al. (Military I), Case No. ICTR-98-41-A.

116 Rome Statute, above note 5, Arts 8(2)(b)(xxi), 8(2)(ii).

117 Ibid., Art. 68(1).

118 C. McCrudden, above note 111, pp. 679–680.

119 Ibid.

120 Ibid.

121 Frédéric Mégret et al., “Human Dignity: A Special Focus on Vulnerable Groups”, in Protecting Dignity: An Agenda for Human Rights, Swiss Initiative to Commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR, June 2009, available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/254903575_Dignity_A_Special_Focus_on_Vulnerable_Groups.

122 Ibid., p. 10.

123 J. Donnelly, above note 91, p. 13.

124 Ibid.

125 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 26.

126 Ibid., para. 26.

127 Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR), General Comment No. 3, “The Nature of States Parties’ Obligations”, UN Doc. E/1991/23, 14 December 1990 (General Comment 3).

128 Ibid.; CESCR, General Comment No. 12, “The Right to Adequate Food”, UN Doc. E/C.12/1999/5, 12 May 1995.

129 CESCR, General Comment No. 15, “The Right to Water”, UN Doc. E/C.12/2002/11, 20 January 2003.

130 General Comment 3, above note 127; CESCR, General Comment No. 14, “The Right to the Highest Attainable Standards of Health”, UN Doc. E/C.12/2000/4, 11 August 2000.

131 General Comment 3, above note 127; CESCR, General Comment No. 4, “The Right to Adequate Housing”, UN Doc. E/1992/23, 13 December 1991; CESCR, General Comment No. 7, “The Right to Adequate Housing: Forced Evictions”, UN Doc. E/1998/22, 20 May 1997.

132 Deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part, may meet the threshold of the crime of genocide: Rome Statute, above note 5, Art. 6(c). The crime against humanity of extermination entails intentional infliction of conditions such as deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population: Ibid., Art. 7(2)(b). With regard to war crimes, in international armed conflict, for example, it is a crime to use the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies: Ibid., Art. 8(b)(xxv). In both international and non-international armed conflict, there is the crime of intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives: Ibid., Arts 8(b)(ix), 8(e)(iv).

133 ICRC, Protracted Conflict and Humanitarian Action: Some Recent ICRC Experiences, Geneva, 2016, available at: www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/document/file_list/protracted_conflict_and_humanitarian_action_icrc_report_lr_29.08.16.pdf.

134 Marc DuBois, “Don't Blur the Lines between Development and Humanitarian Work”, The Guardian, 12 May 2016, available at: www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/may/12/dont-blur-the-lines-between-development-and-humanitarian-work.

135 Alex Lia, “What Role do Humanitarians Play in the Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals?”, Humanitarian Advisory Group, available at: https://humanitarianadvisorygroup.org/what-role-do-humanitarians-play-in-the-achievement-of-the-sustainable-development-goals/.

136 See the SDGs website, available at: www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/.

137 A. Lia, above note 135.

138 General Comment 36, above note 1, para. 62.

139 Ibid.

140 OHCHR, “Paraguay Responsible for Human Rights Violations in Context of Massive Agrochemical Fumigations”, 14 August 2019, available at: www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24890&LangID=E.

141 ILC, above note 38, Chap. VI, “Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts”.

142 Ibid., p. 271, fn. 1304.