Chapter 1 • International Human Rights Law and the Role of the Legal Professions: A General Introduction 2.8 Derogations from international legal obligations In interpreting and applying the terms of the three main general human rights treaties in particularly severe crisis situations when the life of the nation is imperilled, domestic judges, prosecutors and lawyers will also have to consider the possibility that the State concerned has modified the extent of its international legal obligations by resorting to temporary derogations. The question of the administration of criminal justice during states of exception will be dealt with in Chapter 16, and it will therefore suffice in this context to point out that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (art. 4), the American Convention on Human Rights (art. 27) and the European Convention on Human Rights (art. 15) all provide for the possibility for the States parties to resort to derogations in particularly serious emergency situations. However, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights has no corresponding emergency provision, and the absence thereof is seen by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights “as an expression of the principle that the restriction of human rights is not a solution to national difficulties”, and that “the legitimate exercise of human rights does not pose dangers to a democratic State governed by the rule of law”.43 In the treaties where it exists, the right to derogate is subjected to strict formal and substantive requirements, and was never intended to provide Governments with unlimited powers to avoid their treaty obligations. In particular, a qualified principle of proportionality applies in that, according to all the aforementioned treaties, the limitations resorted to must be “strictly required by the exigencies of the situation”. It is noteworthy, furthermore, that some rights, such as the right to life and the right to freedom from torture, may not in any circumstances be derogated from, and that the list of non-derogable rights found in the second paragraphs of the aforesaid articles is not exhaustive. In other words, one cannot argue a contrario that, because a right is not expressly listed as non-derogable, the States parties can proceed to extraordinary limitations on its enjoyment. Since the derogation articles provide for extraordinary limitations on the exercise of human rights, judges, both national and international, have to be conscious of their obligation to interpret these articles by construing them strictly so that individuals’ rights are not sapped of their substance. By at all times maximizing the enjoyment of human rights, States are more likely than not to overcome their crisis situations in a positive, constructive and sustainable manner. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American and European Conventions on Human Rights, States parties have the right in certain particularly difficult situations to derogate from some of their legal obligations. The right to derogate is subjected to strict formal and substantive legal requirements. 43 See undated decision: ACHPR, Cases of Amnesty International, Comité Loosli Bachelard, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Association of Members of the Episcopal Conference of East Africa v. Sudan, No. 48/90, 50/91, 52/91 and 89/93, para. 79; the text used is that found at the following web site: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/comcases/48-90_50-91_52-91_89-93.html. 16 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers