refer to General Comment 20 of the Human Rights Committee on article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights according to which this provision covers acts that are committed by private individuals, which implies a duty for States to take appropriate measures to protect everyone against such acts. The complainants also refer to the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by law Enforcement Officials and the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which have provisions with a similar purpose. do all that could be reasonably expected of them to avoid a real and immediate risk to life of which they have or ought to have knowledge.6 8.11 The complainants further contend that the extent of the obligation to take preventive measures may increase with the immediacy of the risk to life. In support of this argument, they extensively rely on the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in Mahmut Kaya v. Turkey where the Court laid down the obligations of States as follows: first, States have an obligation to take every reasonable step in order to prevent a real and immediate threat to the life and integrity of a person when the actions could be perpetrated by a person or group of persons with the consent or acquiescence of public authorities; second, States have an obligation to provide an effective remedy, including a proper and effective investigation, with regard to actions committed by non-State actors undertaken with the consent or acquiescence of public authorities. 8.10 On the same issue, the complainants cite a decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras, according to which: [a]n illegal act which violates human rights and which is initially not directly imputable to a State (for example, because it is the act of a private person or because the person responsible has not been identified) can lead to international responsibility of the State, not because of the act itself but because of the lack of due diligence to prevent the violation or to respond to it as required by the Convention.5 8.12 The complainants also underline that the obligation of the States under the European Convention on Human Rights goes well beyond mere criminal sanctions for private individuals who have committed acts contrary to article 3 of the said Convention. In Z. v. United Kingdom, the European Commission on Human Rights held that Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights addressed the issue in Osman v. United Kingdom and stated that: the authorities were aware of the serious illtreatment and neglect suffered by the applicants over a period of years at the hands of their parents and failed, despite the means reasonably available to them, to take any effective steps to bring it to an end... [The State had therefore] failed in its positive obligation under article 3 of the Convention to provide the applicants with adequate protection against inhuman and degrading treatment.7 [a]rticle 2 of the Convention may also imply in certain well-defined circumstances a positive obligation on the authorities to take preventive operational measures to protect an individual whose life is at risk from the criminal acts of another individual … [W]here there is an allegation that the authorities have violated their positive obligation to protect the right to life in the context of their above-mentioned duty to prevent and suppress offences against the person … it must be established to its satisfaction that the authorities knew or ought to have known at the time of the existence of a real and immediate risk to the life of an identified individual or individuals from the criminal acts of a third party and that they failed to take measures within the scope of their powers which, judged reasonably, might have been expected to avoid that risk ... [H]aving regard to the nature of the right protected by article 2, a right fundamental in the scheme of the Convention, it is sufficient for an applicant to show that the authorities did not 8.13 In conclusion, the complainants submit that “they were indeed subjected to acts of community violence inflicting on them great physical and mental suffering amounting to torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment”. They further state that “this happened for the purpose of punishing them for an act committed by a third person (the rape of S.B.), and that the community violence (or rather the racist pogrom) at issue took place in the presence of, and thus with the ‘consent or acquiescence’ of, the police whose duty under law was precisely the opposite—to secure their safety and afford them protection”. 6 5 7 Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras, Judgement of 29 July 1988, p. 291. 83 Osman v. United Kingdom, paras. 115–116. Z. v. United Kingdom, para. 98.