Right to life

Life: a globally indisputable and unconditional right
Alexandra Bouzidi
March 2022


Introduction

The right to life is one of the most widely known human rights, probably because it is also among the most fundamental. Most people consider the right to life to be an absolute right, which means that this right cannot be affected and restricted by the state. Throughout history, especially after the Second World War, we have seen the evolution of human rights and, therefore, the right to life.

This article has for purpose to describe and show the basic knowledge concerning the right to life through the example of various conventions and charters, as well as several cases. Through the course of this exposé, I will first present the right to life through history (I). Then I will explain the right to life through the example of the Human Rights Act and its Article 2 (II). Further, I will present several debates regarding the right to life (III). For this last part, the choice of which debate I will present is personal and does not follow a particular order.
 

1. The right to life through History

 
Therefore, the first significant human rights declaration adopted was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 with its Article 3 concerning the right to life:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Two years later, in 1950, the Council of Europe adopted the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In this convention, the right to life is in Article 2:


It is worth noting that Protocol 6 of the ECHR demands that member states outlaw capital punishment except in times of war or national emergency. Then, Protocol 13 demands the total abolition of the death penalty, and since, it has been implemented by most member states.

The European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) interpretation of Article 2 is guided by “the fact that the object and purpose of the ECHR as an instrument for the protection of human beings requires that its provisions must be interpreted and applied so as to make its safeguards practical and effective”. This approach can be exemplified in McCann and Others v. the United Kingdom in paragraph 146. The ECtHR also declares that Article 2 is one of the most fundamental provisions in the Convention. In times of peace, it admits no derogation under Article 15 (Derogation in Time of Emergency). Article 2, with Article 3 (Prohibition on Torture), represents “one of the basic values of the democratic societies making up the Council of Europe”. The Court shows this in the Giuliani and Gaggio v. Italy case, paragraph 174. The Court adds that as per the Giuliani and Gaggio and McCann] cases, the right to life must be understood strictly.

Additionally, the Indian Constitution (1949) also describes and proclaims the right to life in Article 21:


 A classic illustration of this article is the Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978) case, which is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of India. In this case, the Court expanded its interpretation of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution and, as such, overruled A. K Gopalan v. State of Madras. This other case stressed the exclusive nature of fundamental rights, establishing a relationship between Articles 4, 19, and 21 of the Constitution, requiring any law depriving someone of ‘personal liberty’ not to violate any of them. Additionally, the Court determined that a procedure under Article 21 cannot be arbitrary, unfair, oppressive, or unreasonable. With this decision, the Court has decided to reject the past “three decades of formalist interpretation and inaugurated a new path where Courts would expand the rights of individuals against the State, instead of limiting or contracting them.”

Then, in 1966, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) with the right to life in Article 6.1:


In 1969, the United States and 23 other countries adopted the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), implemented in San José, Costa Rica. In this convention, the right to life is in Article 4; however, due to the fact that the United States is a retentionist country, meaning that these countries still operate the death penalty, the ACHR’s definition of the right to life is different.

ACHR, Article 4:


The right to life’s core definition appears in 4.1 of Article 4 of the ACHR. The paragraph itself is similar to other definitions of the right to live in other conventions. As discussed above, the United States had to include specific clauses regarding its states retaining capital punishment. However, as we will see, capital punishment is often seen and argued, especially by abolitionist States, as a violation of the right to life.

In 1981, the nations of Africa adopted the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which sets standards and establishes the groundwork for the promotion and protection of human rights in Africa. In the African Charter, the right to life appears in Article 4:


Then, as one more example, the United Kingdom adopted in 1998 the Human Rights Act with, in its Schedule 1, Article 2, which defines the right to life as:

     1. Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.

     2. Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
          (a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence;
          (b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;
          (c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.

 

2. The Human Rights Act and the right to life: the implementation of an absolute right

 
To further explicate the importance of the right to life, we will further develop Article 2 of the Human Rights Act. Firstly, as with any other definition of the right to live in any other convention and charter, this right is absolute.

Nobody, including the government, can try to end an individual’s life. Being “absolute” means that the right to life cannot be altered, interfered with, or restricted by the state. The right to life means that the government must take all the necessary steps to safeguard life and protect individuals through the making of laws. Therefore, whenever a government or public authority makes a decision that could endanger an individual’s life, it is obliged to take into account the individual’s right to life.

However, this right suffers from many controversies and debates. One of them is around the right to choose death. In the case Pretty v. United Kingdom, Diane Pretty, a United Kingdom national, is dying of motor neurone disease, a degenerative disease affecting the muscles. There is no cure for it. As the disease is at an advanced stage, the applicant is paralysed from the neck downwards, and her life expectancy is poor.

Nevertheless, her intellectual capacity and ability to make decisions are unimpaired. As a result, she wishes to control how and when she dies to avoid any further suffering and indignity. Thus, she asked her husband to assist her since she could not move independently and therefore could not take her own life. If it is not a crime to commit suicide under English law, it is a crime to assist another to commit suicide under section 2, para. 1 of the Suicide Act of 1961.

Consequently, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had refused her request to guarantee her husband freedom from prosecution if he did help her. However, her appeal against this decision has been unsuccessful. In addition, the European Court of Human Rights, before which her request was finally presented, found that the right to life does not entail the right to choose death over life. The court added that no one has the right to die at the hands of a third party or with the assistance of a public authority.

 

3. The various debates concerning the right to life

 
Hence, in a general sense, the right to life means that an individual should not be killed by another entity, be it another human being or a government. This right, albeit simple, is subject to discussion and debate as specified above. In the following paragraphs, I will highlight a few of the most critical ongoing debates I believe are essential.

There is first the duty of a government and public authorities to investigate. In other words, if an individual is slain by the police or dies because a public authority failed to protect that individual’s life, then the state must investigate the death (i.e., someone is killed by the police).

Secondly, there is the debate on ethics. Peter Singer, a prominent philosopher in the domain of ethics and the right to life, considers the right to life to be grounded in the ability to plan and anticipate one’s future as it is what qualifies the individual as a member of the human species. However, as it is a somewhat limited vision of human beings, many bioethics scholars, especially those associated with disability rights and disability studies, argue that Singer’s theory relies on simplistic conceptions of disability.

Furthermore, there is an ongoing debate on capital punishment and the place of the right to life in relation to it. Abolitionist nations (countries that have made capital punishment unlawful and have abolished it) argue that capital punishment, or the death penalty, violates the right to life. In contrast, retentionist nations (countries where the death penalty is still in use, therefore lawful) argue that the death penalty is not a violation of the right to life, as it operates according to a sense of justice as well as the right to life.

Nevertheless, for abolitionists, capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights that a government can commit against an individual because life is one of the most important human rights. It violates that right without necessity and inflicts on the detainee psychologically, if not physical, torture. In support of this view concerning capital punishment, Amnesty International and many other human rights organisations have declared to consider the death penalty as “the ultimate, irreversible denial of Human Rights.” Following the same views, the United Nations General Assembly has taken many non-binding resolutions in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 calling for a global suspension, or cessation, of executions to eventual abolition.

Finally, the last controversy and debate I would like to include in this article are the killings of individuals by law enforcement and the issue of police brutality.

International law is binding upon all state actors; therefore, states must know and be capable of applying international human rights law and behold international standards regarding these rights. As has been mentioned above, the right to life is considered an inalienable right granted to every human being on the planet. However, in certain extreme situations, civilians might be killed by law enforcement agents. The situations in which a law enforcement agent kills an individual/civilian are strictly outlined by the International Human Rights Standards for Law Enforcement. As such, any actions taken by a law enforcement agent must be taken following a certain set of rules that have been set out in the ‘Use of Force’ section of the Pocket Book on Human Rights for the Police.

In regard to the use of force, it is described that all other means of a non-violent nature should first be employed before using proportionately appropriate use of force. The idea of proportion is a crucial one concerning the use of force in many different areas of law, such as international humanitarian law (the laws of war). However, abuses of the use of force by police authorities exist. In the Graham v. Connor case, Graham who was a diabetic and was suffering from a low blood-sugar episode was detained by an officer of police who had believed witnessing circumstances that made Graham looks suspicious. The detaining of Graham, however, resulted in multiple injuries for the latter. Therefore, he proceeded to sue the police for use of excessive force. As a result, the US Supreme Court did not find a diabetic episode to be potentially threatening to a law enforcement agent. However, the Supreme Court did find that the circumstances of the arrestation must be considered when judging the officer rather than considering the incident with carefully considered hindsight. Thus, in the case of Graham’s episode, the Court considered that the diabetic induced behaviour could be considered threatening to a law enforcement agent and other civilians.

Therefore, such a questionable decision makes it difficult to truly ascertain what constitutes a fair description of a valid scenario in which a law enforcement agent might use force and lethal force.

Consequently, with decisions similar to the Graham v. Connor case, governments and lawmakers had to create and implement valid justification for the breach of the right to life.
Because the right to life is an absolute right, they are very limited situations in which it is lawful to violate said right. In the Human Rights Act (UK) and its Article 2 on the right to life, it is described three exceptions when a public authority can justify the killing of an individual:

     1) If it is in self-defence or in defence of someone else from unlawful someone.
     
     2) To lawfully arrest someone or prevent them from escaping lawful detention.
     
     3) To stop a riot or insurrection.

Still, in all three situations, the use of force must have been absolutely necessary and proportionate to the threat.

Conclusion

Consequently, the right to life is regarded as the most fundamental human right as it protects the very essence of being human: being alive. The right to life is the protection of life no matter gender, race, religion, social status, and many more. The right to life ought to be non-discriminatory and apply to all of us from our birth till the day we die. As such, the right to life is essential since, without it, it would be impossible to enjoy the other inherent rights of a human being.

As an aside, I wish to highlight something I have noticed through my research. As with most people, when I am looking to know more about a topic, I first find myself on Wikipedia before moving to more scholarly websites and literature. As I was looking through the ‘Right to Life’ page and reached the very bottom, my eyes stopped on the External Links subcategory.

Concerning the Right to Life, the following external links are substantive human rights; liberty, right to life on the Children’s Rights Portal, and Western World and culture. The latter is highly disturbing, for it implies that the right to life is inherently from Western nations. Therefore, it is extremely concerning to observe that public knowledge continues to be framed in terms of a colonial, North/South, developed/underdeveloped light and epistemology. There is, therefore, a great need for the decolonisation of literature surrounding the subject of human rights and the right to life.




Bibliography:

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