Excessive use of force by the police or other law enforcement officials may have lethal outcomes. This chapter describes the core law enforcement principles of necessity and proportionality which govern all use of force in law enforcement. Specific consideration is given to the restrictions imposed on the use of firearms and related ammunition and firing modes. Consideration of less-lethal weapons in law enforcement benefits from the expertise of Dr Abi Dymond of Exeter University. The human rights principles of legality, precaution, and accountability for the use of force are also addressed.

This chapter describes the duty of States to respect and protect the right to life in the context of assemblies, including demonstrations, marches, and protests. The right to assembly peacefully is a fundamental human right. General Comment 37 on the right of peaceful assembly, adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in July 2020, is an important normative reference.

Foreseeable threats to life such as from accidents, disease, and natural disasters, demand both preventive and reparative action from the authorities, and such action must be of a minimum level of competence. The General Comment on the right to life issued by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2015 stipulates that the African Charter demands that States act to protect life against threats from natural disasters, famines, and outbreaks of infectious diseases.

At the regional level, by far the most prolific in terms of jurisprudence is the European Court of Human Rights: between its first judgment on the right to life in September 1995 and through late November 2020, 3,875 judgments concerned the right, of which 476 were issued by the Court’s Grand Chamber. But the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has also made a significant contribution to our understanding of the scope and legal status of the right to life, while the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights brought together learning at the regional and global level in an important General Comment issued in 2015. A major gap in regional human rights protection exists across Asia and the Pacific.

This chapter describes the substantive and procedural components of the right to life under international law. It discusses the nature of arbitrary deprivation of life, as well as the duty to investigate all suspicious death, which is integral to the right to life, at the least when read in conjunction with the duty to protect life.

Migrants often face heightened threats to their lives and well-being resulting from their legal status of alien in the countries to which they migrate, as well as a consequence of hostility from the local population. This has implications for the duty to protect the right to life as well as the duty to respect the right to life. The Migrant Workers Convention has been ratified by only 55 States, the lowest of any of the instruments viewed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as ‘core’ human rights treaties.

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.

Once a person falls within the international legal definition of a refugee, he or she is entitled to make a claim for asylum. The prohibition in international law of refoulement prevents a refugee from being sent back, whether directly or through a third country, to the State from which he or she escaped if he or she will suffer persecution upon or after return. Additional protection for asylum seekers and refugees caught up in a situation of armed conflict is contained in international humanitarian law.

The threat to journalists in zones of armed conflict is a longstanding one. In 2006, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1738 in which it expressed its deep concern at the frequency of acts of violence against journalists in armed conflict. In October 2020, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution dedicated to the safety of journalists while a UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity aims to tackle the challenges facing journalists.

The chapter traces the historical origins of the right to life from antiquity to the modern era. It encompasses the Code of Hammurabi and the American Declaration of Independence as milestones along a long road.

The first chapter of the book outlines the status of the right to life under international law. It concludes that the right to life is both a customary rule and a general principle of law while the prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life is a peremptory norm of international law (jus cogens).

IDPs are especially vulnerable to human trafficking, to forced recruitment, to sexual violence, and to falling prey to landmines or unexploded ordnance. IDPs are far more at risk from explosive ordnance than are settled communities because they do not know which areas or which routes are safe and which are not. Some of the typical needs and protection risks that arise in internal displacement include family separation, loss of documentation, freedom of movement in and out of camps, loss of property, and further exposure to the risk of secondary or onward displacement. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement have not been turned into a legally binding instrument, although many of the Principles reflect customary law. The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention) is the only continental treaty dedicated to the protection of IDPs.

This chapter considers whether, and if so, how, the right to life may be violated by pollution and, at the least, a wilful failure to seek to tackle climate change. A serious violation of international environmental law leading to death is ipso facto violative also of the right to life. This includes also the situation where environmental pollution in one State affects the environment and the population in another. Pollution has a significant and growing impact on the lives of children. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), lower respiratory infections are among the largest causes of mortality in children, accounting for 15% of deaths in 2015. In 2020, a death certificate in England listed air pollution as a cause of death for the first time.

International organisations are subjects of international law with international personality. They are constrained by customary international law to respect and protect life. In addition, the European Union is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. A range of conduct will violate the right to life and thereby constitute an internationally wrongful act. Examples include the most flagrant instances of arbitrary deprivation of life: deliberate extrajudicial executions and other arbitrary killings by agents of an international organisation that often uses force, such as by NATO in its operations, or by UN Police or a UN peacekeeping operation. This is so whether the killings occur in peacetime or during and in connection with a situation of armed conflict.