Certain rights are non-derogable217 Both Article 4 ICCPR and Article 15 ECHR (and their equivalent provisions in other international human rights treaties218) acknowledge that certain rights are non-derogable, regardless of the situation. As broad principles, these are the treaty provisions related to: • • • • the right to life; protection from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; protection from slavery; and protection from retrospective criminal penalties and law. Because the ability to derogate from human rights standards could undermine the entire purpose and value of international human rights protection, those bodies responsible for the implementation and protection of human rights treaties, such as the Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights, have laid down certain principles that must be satisfied for a derogation to be lawful.219 These can be summarized as follows: • • • • • • principle of exceptionality; principle of publicity; principle of proportionality; principle of consistency; principle of non-discrimination; and principle of notification. These principles place constraints and limits on what a government can do. The fact that states can suspend certain rights is not the same as allowing arbitrary action. 217 The HRC extended the category of non-derogable rights beyond those listed in Article 4(2), see next section for details. 218 E.g. Article 27 of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights. The African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights contains no derogation provision. 219 “A public emergency may then be seen to have, in particular, the following characteristics: (1) It must be actual or imminent; (2) Its effects must involve the whole nation; (3) the continuance of the organized life of the community must be threatened; (4) the crisis or danger must be exceptional, in that the normal measures or restrictions, permitted by the Convention for the maintenance of public safety, health and order, are plainly inadequate”, ECtHR, The Greek case (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands v. Greece), Applications nos. 3321/67, 3322/67, 3323/67, 3344/67, 18 November 1969, para. 113. See also ECtHR, Lawless v. Ireland (No. 3), Application no. 332/57, 1 July 1961, paras. 28 and 90-91. 88 Countering Terrorism, Protecting Human Rights