Civil and political rights emerged out of fundamental rights conceptions protecting life, integrity, liberty and opinion of a person against an overbearing state. Rights such as the right to life and freedom from ill-treatment may also be at risk from other sources, namely non-state actors in the domestic and other spheres, which have taken on a growing importance in the wake of states’ withdrawal from public functions. While international human rights standards have been developed to provide adequate protection in these circumstances, their implementation requires certain structures without which it is unlikely that core civil and political rights can be effectively protected. There are deep-seated structural factors that can, and have, undermined the effective protection of rights in all systems. Social exclusion, inequality and discrimination in particular are prone to significantly increase vulnerability, as evident in the higher likelihood of persons from certain ethnic or class or national backgrounds being subject to arbitrary arrest, detention, ill-treatment and other violations. Against this background this chapter identifies the normative content of the right to life, the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other ill-treatment), the right to liberty and security, the right to a fair trial and qualified rights, particularly freedom of expression, and examines the challenge of ensuring their effective protection.

It is generally accepted that bodies corporate are, at the least, partial subjects of international law and enjoy a measure of international legal personality when they are party to an armed conflict, as that notion is understood by international humanitarian law. It is further unquestioned that the members of a private corporation may be held individually responsible under international criminal law for international crimes they have committed in the course of their work. This was made clear in judgments in the Nuremberg Military Tribunals that followed the end of the Second World War. Bodies corporate are also bound by jus cogens human rights norms, including the prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life and on enforced disappearance.

There is increasing acceptance that both prescriptive jurisdiction and the application of customary law can serve to bind entities other than States or international organisations. A third approach is to consider de facto authorities – those that do not represent a recognised State but which exercise effective control over a significant populace – as having some of the human rights obligations incumbent on States. At the least, armed groups are bound by jus cogens human rights norms, including the prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life and on enforced disappearance.

Under international law, individual responsibility exists for violation of jus cogens norms, which include arbitrary deprivation of life, resulting from acts or omissions. Peremptory norms of international law are binding not only on all States, corporations, armed groups, and organisations, but also on individuals. As the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic declared in 2012: ‘at a minimum, human rights obligations constituting peremptory international law (ius cogens) bind States, individuals and non-State collective entities, including armed groups’. While the most obvious route for realising individual responsibility for a violation of the right to life is through the criminal law – domestic or international – there are also civil remedies available in certain States. This is most notably the case in the United States (US), based on the Alien Tort Statute of 1789 or actions under Section 1983 of the US Code.

Enforced disappearance, the prohibition of which is a jus cogens norm, represents a grave threat to life. The key elements in an enforced disappearance are the detention or abduction of an individual, followed by a refusal to acknowledge his or her whereabouts and confirm his or her well-being. In any enforced disappearance in which it was involved, a State is likely to be found to have violated the duty to protect life as well as other rights, such as the prohibition of torture or other inhumane treatment or punishment, the rights to liberty and security of person, and the right to recognition as a person before the law.

Although there has been little discussion of the issue in academic literature, at the least, NGOs are bound by jus cogens human rights norms, including the prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life and on enforced disappearance. An NGO is not, however, formally defined under international law.

An examination of regional human rights systems suggests the following typical process. States agree on the need for closer regional cooperation if not integration. Human rights are accepted as one element of, and a yardstick for, the regional political order. A foundational human rights instrument is adopted. Further, a human rights body with a mandate to promote human rights and monitor states parties’ compliance with their treaty obligations is (eventually) set up. Over time, responding to demands and with a view to strengthening the effectiveness and credibility of the system, substantive rights are broadened and the role of victims (and others, particularly non-governmental organisations (NGOs)) in raising the issue of, or complaining about, human rights violations is enhanced. As the system matures this momentum eventually results in the establishment of a judicial body. Parallel efforts to foster regional political integration reinforce the importance of human rights at all levels as a marker of the system’s ability to provide a stable order based on the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights.