Chapter 1 • International Human Rights Law and the Role of the Legal Professions: A General Introduction Some fundamental rights may never in any circumstances be derogated from. The right to derogate must be construed so as not to sap the individual rights of their substance. Derogations are not permitted under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 2.9 International State responsibility for human rights violations Under international law, States will incur responsibility for not complying with their legal obligations to respect and ensure, that is, to guarantee, the effective enjoyment of the human rights recognized either in a treaty binding on the State concerned or in any other source of law. As explained by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Velásquez case, an “impairment of those rights which can be attributed under the rules of international law to the action or omission of any public authority constitutes an act imputable to the State, which assumes responsibility in the terms provided by” the legal source concerned.44 Whilst the Court was in this Judgment explaining the meaning of article 1(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights, it indeed merely stated a general rule of law applicable to international human rights law as a whole. Agents for whom a State is responsible include such groups and individuals as ministerial civil servants, judges, police officers, prison officials, customs officials, teachers, government-controlled business and other similar groups. This means that States are under an obligation to prevent, investigate, punish, and, whenever possible, restore rights that have been violated and/or to provide compensation.45 International human rights law also sometimes has an important third-party effect in that States may be responsible for not having taken reasonable action to prevent private individuals or groups from carrying out acts that violate human rights, or to provide adequate protection against such violations under domestic law.46 As held by the European Court of Human Rights with regard to the right to respect for one’s private and family life in article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, for instance, this provision 44 I-A Court HR, Velásquez Rodríguez case, Judgment of July 29, 1988, Series C, No. 4, p. 151, para. 164. 45 See e.g. ibid., p. 152, para. 166. As to obligations to provide effective protection of the right to life under article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, see e.g. General Comment No. 6, in United Nations Compilation of General Comments, pp. 114-116. 46 See as to the American Convention on Human Rights, I-A Court HR, Velásquez Rodríguez Case, Judgment of July 29, 1988, Series C, No. 4, pp. 155-156, paras. 176-177; and as to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN doc. GAOR, A/47/40, Report HRC, p. 201, para. 2. At the European level, see e.g. Eur. Court HR, Case of A. v. the United Kingdom,Judgment of 23 September 1998, Reports 1998-VI, at p. 2692 et seq. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 17