I. Right to private life 241. According to Article 17 of the ICCPR “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation” and “[e]veryone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks”. The right to respect for private and family life is also guaranteed by Article 8(1) of the ECHR346 and Article 11 of the ACHR. 242. A rticle 8(2) of the ECHR further stipulates that any interference with private life by public authorities must be prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society in the interests of one of the grounds enumerated in the Convention. The UN Human Rights Committee has emphasized that protection against unlawful interference requires that “[i]nterference authorized by States can only take place on the basis of law, which itself must comply with the provisions, aims and objectives of the Covenant.” As regards the concept of arbitrariness, the Committee has pointed out that this was intended “to guarantee that even interference provided for by law should be in accordance with the provisions, aims and objectives of the Covenant and should be, in any event, reasonable in the particular circumstances.”347 Moreover, in its jurisprudence the Committee has stressed that the requirement of reasonableness implies that any interference must be proportionate to the end sought, and must be necessary in the circumstances of any given case.348 Thus, as in the case of other rights that can be restricted under certain limited conditions, participating States should ensure that any interference in the right to private life strictly complies with the principle of legality, necessity and proportionality. 346  Article 8 of the ECHR does not, as the ICCPR, refer specifically to honour and reputation, but in its jurisprudence the European Court of Human Rights has stated that under certain circumstances the right to protection of one’s reputation is covered by Article 8 of the Convention as part of the right to respect for private life; see Chauvy and Others v. France, Application no. 64915/01, 29 June 2004, para. 70. In the judgement in the case of Karakó v. Hungary (Application no. 39311/05, 28 April 2009), the Court stated further that “reputation has only been deemed to be an independent right sporadically (…) and mostly when the factual allegations were of such a seriously offensive nature that their publication had an inevitable direct effect on the applicant’s private life” (para. 23). As set out in the sections Confronting stigmatization and marginalization and Freedom of opinion and expression above, any measures to protect one’s honour and reputation must be in full compliance with international standards to ensure that they are not used to unduly curtail the right to freedom of opinion and expression. 347  Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 16 on Article 17, paras. 3 and 4. 348  See, for example, Antonius Cornelis Van Hulst v. The Netherlands, Communication No. 903/1999, UN Doc. CCPR/C/82/D/903/1999, 15 November 2004, para. 7.6. See also Toonen v. Australia, Communication No. 488/1992, UN Doc. CCPR/C/50/D/488/1992, 31 March 1994, para. 8.3. Furthermore, the Committee emphasized in its General Comment that even with regard to interferences that conform to the Covenant, relevant legislation must specify in detail the precise circumstances in which interferences may be permitted. A decision to make use of such authorized interference must be made only by the authority designated under the law and on a case-by-case basis; see General Comment No. 16, paras. 7 and 8. The European Court of Human Rights stated that Article 8(2), which provides for an exception to a right guaranteed by the Convention, is to be narrowly interpreted, and the need for interferences in a given case must be convincingly established (Klass v. Germany, 1978, para. 42 and Funke v. France, 1993, para. 55). Furthermore, the Court stated that it must be satisfied that, whatever system of surveillance is adopted, there exist adequate and effective guarantees against abuse (Klass v. Germany para. 50). Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 111