CHAPTER 4 RIGHT TO PERSONAL LIBERTY drug addicts, vagrants or irregular migrants. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966 does not, however, contain a similar list of lawful forms of deprivation of liberty, but prohibits arbitrary and unlawful arrest and detention, thereby leaving States with a fairly broad discretionary power to define in their laws cases in which persons may be deprived of their right to personal liberty. The UN Human Rights Committee made it clear from the outset that Article 9 ICCPR ‘is applicable to all deprivations of liberty, whether in criminal cases or in other cases such as, for example, mental illness, vagrancy, drug addiction, educational purposes, immigration control, etc.’5 Similar provisions in other general regional human rights treaties, such as Article 7 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) of 1969, Article 6 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights of 1981 or Article 14 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights of 2004 follow in this respect the model of Article 9 ICCPR. It goes without saying that these provisions of general international human rights law apply equally to children. RATIFIED TREATIES 0 1 2 3 4 5 EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTSStates (1950) Source: African Union, Council of Europe, League of Arab States, OHCHR, Organisation of Amercian INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS (1966) AMERICAN 5 UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment 8/16, 27 JulyCONVENTION 1982, para. 1. ON HUMAN RIGHTS (1969) CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD (1989) OPTIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE UN CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE (2002) 62 ARAB CHARTER ON HUMAN RIGHTS (2004) CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (2006)