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.

The chapter considers the inter-relationship between the right to life and other fundamental human rights, in particular the right to freedom from torture, to family life, to fair trial, to liberty and to security, to privacy, to peaceful assembly, and to food. While the remedy of a survivor of unlawful State action is likely to exist under the right to freedom from inhumane treatment, where the intent of State agents was to kill, a violation of the right to life may also have occurred.

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.