VII. Conclusions and Recommendations The Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners adopted and proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly resolution 45/111 on 14 December 1990 provides in paragrapg 5 that: except for those limitations that are demonstrably necessitated by the fact of incarceration, all prisoners shall retain the human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and, where the State concerned is a party, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol thereto, as well as such other rights as are set out in other United Nations covenants. Endorsing this philosophy in 1992, the United Nations Human Rights Committee explained that states have "a positive obligation toward persons who are particularly vulnerable because of their status as persons deprived of liberty" and stated that: [N]ot only may persons deprived of their liberty not be subjected to [torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment], including medical or scientific experimentation, but neither may they be subjected to any hardship or constraint other than that resulting from the deprivation of liberty; respect for the dignity of such persons must be guaranteed under the same conditions as for that of free persons. Persons deprived of their liberty enjoy all the rights set forth in the [ICCPR], subject to the restrictions that are unavoidable in a closed environment7 More significantly, the Human Rights Committee has also stressed that the obligation to treat persons deprived of their liberty with dignity and humanity is a fundamental and universally applicable rule, not dependent on the material resources available to the state party,8 thus a country cannot invoke the lack of resources as an excuse for denying prisoners or other individuals the enjoyment of their basic rights. Ethiopia has ratified several international human rights instruments including Declarations and basic documents dealing with the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty. She is therefore bound by the provisions of these instruments and should take practical measures to ensure that they are respected. 7 U.N. Human Rights Committee, General Comment 21, paragraph 3. The Human Rights Committee provides authoritative interpretations of the ICCPR though the periodic issuance of General Comments. 8 Ibid., paragraph 4; see also Mukong v. Cameroon (communication No. 458/1991) (August 10, 1994), U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/51/D/458/1991 (stating that minimum requirements regarding floor space, sanitary facilities, provision of food, [medicine and other basic amenities] etc., must be observed, "even if economic or budgetary considerations may make compliance with these obligations difficult"). 44 Report of the Mission of the Special Rapporteur on Prisons to Ethiopia 15 – 29 March 2004