Joint Submission on International Standards for Regulating the Use of Force

On October 6, 2017, the Open Society Justice Initiative provided the UN Human Rights Committee with recommendations to the committee’s draft General Comment on the right to life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The submission was made jointly with the American Civil Liberties Union, Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic, International Commission of Jurists, and Rights Watch UK. The submission addressed five topics relating specifically to the use of force:

• general scope of the use of force under Article 6;
• rules governing the use of force under Article 6;
• extraterritorial use of force;
• use of force in situations of armed conflict; and
• the duty to investigate incidents involving the use of force.

In late October 2018, the committee adopted the General Comment at its 124th Session [PDF], which reflected several of the recommendations in the joint submission. The Human Rights Committee is the body of independent experts that monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The committee’s General Comments provide the Human Rights Committee's authoritative interpretation of the covenant’s various provisions.