The Covenant ensures the protection of civil and political rights. These rights include the right of peoples to self-determination. Furthermore, State parties must ensure that the rights recognized in the Covenant apply to all individuals “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
Rights and freedoms include:
- the inherent right to life;
- freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and medical or scientific experimentation without consent;
- freedom from slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour;
- freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention;
- the right to freedom of movement within the State;
- persons charged with a criminal offence “shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law,” to be “tried without undue delay” and “not to be compelled to testify against himself or to confess guilt”;
- freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
- freedom of expression and freedom of association including the right to form and join trade unions;
- the free and full consent of the intending spouses in marriage;
- the right to political participation including the right to vote and to be elected;
- equality of all persons before the law and equal protection of the law without discrimination; and
- persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities “shall not be denied the right… to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.”
In addition, Article 20 prohibits any propaganda for war as well as “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
Derogations and limitations. There are some circumstances when State Parties may restrict or derogate from some of the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Covenant. Article 4 allows State Parties in time of a public emergency which “threatens the life of the nation,” to “take such measures which derogate from their obligations under the Covenant. However, such measures may only be taken to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation provided that they are not inconsistent with a State party’s other obligations under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin. A State party which avails itself of the right of derogation must have proclaimed the existence of such a public emergency, and must inform the other States parties of the provisions from which it has derogated and the reasons for which it does so. The State party must also communicate the date on which it terminates the derogation in question.” It should be noted that for some of the articles no derogation is permissible at any time. Included among these non-derogable rights and freedoms are the inherent right to life, freedom from torture, freedom from slavery and servitude and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
There are two optional protocols to the Covenant. State parties that ratify the First Optional Protocol recognize “the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications (including complaints) from individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by that State Party of any of the rights set forth in the Covenant.”
State parties that ratify the Second Optional Protocol commit to the abolition of the death penalty. However, Article 2 of the Second Optional Protocol allows a State Party to make a reservation at the time of ratification/accession “that provides for the application of the death penalty in time of war pursuant to a conviction for a most serious crime of a military nature committed during wartime.”