Международный пакт о гражданских и политических правах: обзор и ключевые положения.

Treaty adopted by United Nations General Assembly in 1965

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair trial. It was adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI) on 16 December 1966 and entered into force on 23 March 1976 after its thirty fifth ratification or accession. Article 49 allowed that the covenant would enter into force three months after the date of the deposit of the thirty fifth instrument of ratification or accession as of 2022, the Covenant has 173 parties and six more signatories without ratification, most notably the People's Republic of China and Cuba; North Korea is the only state that has tried to withdraw. The ICCPR is considered a seminal document in the history of international law and human rights, forming part of the International Bill of Human Rights, along with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Compliance with the ICCPR is monitored by the United Nations Human Rights Committee,Not to be confused with the United Nations Human Rights Council. which reviews regular reports of states parties on how the rights are being implemented. States must report one year after acceding to the Covenant and then whenever the Committee requests (usually every four years). The Committee normally meets at the UN Office at Geneva, Switzerland and typically holds three sessions per year.

Article 6 of the Covenant recognises the individual's "inherent right to life" and requires it to be protected by law. It is a "supreme right" from which no derogation can be permitted, and must be interpreted widely. It therefore requires parties to take positive measures to reduce infant mortality and increase life expectancy, as well as forbidding arbitrary killings by security forces. and forbids it to be used on children and pregnant women or in a manner contrary to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The UN Human Rights Committee interprets the Article as "strongly suggest[ing] that abolition is desirable", As with Article 6, it cannot be derogated from under any circumstances. In response to Nazi human experimentation during WW2 this article explicitly includes a prohibition on medical and scientific experimentation without consent. The article also prohibits forced labour, with exceptions for criminal punishment, military service and civil obligations.

Article 9 recognises the rights to liberty and security of the person. It prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention, requires any deprivation of liberty to be according to law, and obliges parties to allow those deprived of their liberty to challenge their imprisonment through the courts. These provisions apply not just to those imprisoned as part of the criminal process, but also to those detained due to mental illness, drug addiction, or for educational or immigration purposes. Articles 9.3 and 9.4 impose procedural safeguards around arrest, requiring anyone arrested to be promptly informed of the charges against them, and to be brought promptly before a judge. It also restricts the use of pre trial detention, requiring that it not be 'the general rule'. This applies not just to prisoners, but also to those detained for immigration purposes or psychiatric care. The right complements the Article 7 prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. It requires prisons to be focused on reform and rehabilitation rather than punishment. Article 11 prohibits the use of imprisonment as a punishment for breach of contract.

Article 14 recognizes and protects a right to justice and a fair trial. Article 14.1 establishes the ground rules: everyone must be equal before the courts, and any hearing must take place in open court before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal, with any judgment or ruling made public. Closed hearings are only permitted for reasons of privacy, justice, or national security, and judgments may only be suppressed in divorce cases or to protect the interests of children. Article 14.3 mandates that litigants must be informed promptly and in detail in a language which they understand. and forbids double jeopardy. It requires that those convicted of a crime be allowed to appeal to a higher tribunal, and requires victims of a Miscarriage of justice to be compensated. It establishes rights to a speedy trial, to counsel, against self incrimination, and for the accused to be present and call and examine witnesses. Article 15 prohibits prosecutions under ex post facto law and the imposition of retrospective criminal penalties, and requires the imposition of the lesser penalty where criminal sentences have changed between the offence and conviction. One exception is criminal proceedings held for violations of peremptory norms (jus cogens) under customary international law, such as genocide, slavery, torture, and wars of aggression. Article 16 requires states to recognize everyone as a person before the law.

Article 12 guarantees freedom of movement, including the right of persons to choose their residence, to leave and return to a country. These rights apply to legal aliens as well as citizens of a state, and can be restricted only where necessary to protect national security, public order or health, and the rights and freedoms of others. The article also recognises a right of people to enter their own country: the right of return. The Human Rights Committee interprets this right broadly as applying not just to citizens, but also to those stripped of or denied their nationality. Article 17 mandates the right of privacy. This provision, specifically article 17(1), protects private adult consensual sexual activity, thereby nullifying prohibitions on homosexual behaviour, however, the wording of this covenant's marriage right (Article 23) excludes the extrapolation of a same sex marriage right from this provision. Article 17 also protects people against unlawful attacks to their honor and reputation. Article 17 (2) grants the protection of the law against such attacks. Article 19 mandates freedom of expression. Article 20 mandates sanctions against inciting war and hatred. Article 21 mandates freedom of assembly and 22 mandates freedom of association. These provisions guarantee the right to freedom of association, the right to trade unions and also defines the International Labour Organization. Article 23 mandates the right of marriage. The wording of this provision neither requires nor prohibits same sex marriage. Article 24 mandates special protection, the right to a name, and the right to a nationality for every child. Article 27 mandates the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minority to enjoy their own culture, to profess their own religion, and to use their own language.

Article 3 provides an accessory non discrimination principle. Accessory in the way that it cannot be used independently and can only be relied upon in relation to another right protected by the ICCPR. In contrast, Article 26 contains a revolutionary norm by providing an autonomous equality principle which is not dependent upon another right under the convention being infringed. This has the effect of widening the scope of the non discrimination principle beyond the scope of ICCPR.

There are two Optional Protocols to the Covenant. The First Optional Protocol establishes an individual complaints mechanism, allowing individuals to complain to the Human Rights Committee about violations of the Covenant. This has led to the creation of a complex jurisprudence on the interpretation and implementation of the Covenant. as of 2019, the First Optional Protocol has 116 parties. The Second Optional Protocol abolishes the death penalty; however, countries were permitted to make a reservation allowing for use of death penalty for the most serious crimes of a military nature, committed during wartime. as of 2022, the Second Optional Protocol had 90 parties. Argentina will apply the fair trial rights guaranteed in its constitution to the prosecution of those accused of violating the general law of nations.

The Covenant is not directly enforceable in Australia, but its provisions support a number of domestic laws, which confer enforceable rights on individuals. For example, Article 17 of the convention has been implemented by the Australian Privacy Act 1988. Likewise, the Covenant's equality and anti discrimination provisions support the federal Disability Discrimination Act 1992. Finally, the Covenant is one of the major sources of 'human rights' listed in the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011. This law requires most new legislation and administrative instruments (such as delegated/subordinate legislation) to be tabled in parliament with a statement outlining the proposed law's compatibility with the listed human rights A Joint Committee on Human Rights scrutinises all new legislation and statements of compatibility. The findings of the Joint Committee are not legally binding. Legislation also establishes the Australian Human Rights Commission which allows the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to examine enacted legislation (to suggest remedial enactments), its administration (to suggest avoidance of practices) and general compliance with the covenant which is scheduled to the AHRC legislation. In Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory, the convention can be used by a plaintiff or defendant who invokes those jurisdiction's human rights charters. While the Convention cannot be used to overturn a Victorian or ACT law, a Court can issue a 'declaration of incompatibility' that requires the relevant Attorney General to respond in Parliament within a set time period. refn|For example, Part 4, Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT). and new legislation and subordinate legislation must be accompanied by a statement of compatibility. refn|For example, Part 4, Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT).

Ireland's use of Special Criminal Courts where juries are replaced by judges and other special procedures apply has been found to not violate the treaty: "In the Committee's view, trial before courts other than the ordinary courts is not necessarily, per se, a violation of the entitlement to a fair hearing and the facts of the present case do not show that there has been such a violation."

New Zealand took measures to give effect to many of the rights contained within it by passing the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in 1990, and formally incorporated the status of protected person into law through the passing of the Immigration Act 2009.

Sri Lankan author Shakthika Sathkumara was arrested on 1 April 2019 for inciting religious violence, following a publication of a short story about homosexuality and child abuse at a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka. The author had been adjudged the best Sinhala language short story writer in Sri Lanka's National Youth Literary Festivals of 2010 and 2014, and was twice the recipient of the north western provincial state literary award. A group of Buddhist monks had stormed the author's workplace demanding punitive action against him after the story first appeared on Facebook; the ICCPR prohibits "advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence". Human rights organizations Civicus and the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) have asserted that the charges are spurious and a clear violation of the author's right to freedom of expression.

The United States Senate ratified the ICCPR in 1992, with five reservations, five understandings, and four declarations. Some have noted that with so many reservations, its implementation has little domestic effect, although it has been argued that the reason behind the Senate reservations is that Article 20(2) (regarding hate speech) of the ICCPR may be unconstitutional according to Supreme Court precedent. Included in the Senate's ratification was the declaration that "the provisions of Article 1 through 27 of the Covenant are not self executing", and a Senate Executive Report stated that the declaration was meant to "clarify that the Covenant will not create a private cause of action in U. S. Courts". Where a treaty or covenant is not self executing, and where Congress has not acted to implement the agreement with legislation, no private right of action within the US judicial system is created by ratification. However, a reservation that is "incompatible with the object and purpose" of a treaty is void as a matter of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and international law, and there is question as to whether the non self execution declaration is even constitutional under the Supremacy Clause (Prof. Louis Henkin argues that it is not). Prof. Jordan Paust criticizes the United States' ratification subject to the non self execution declaration as being an abuse of the treaty.

Most states in the world are parties to the ICCPR. As of 2024, the following 24 states have not become party to it, while six states have signed the Covenant but not ratified it.