II. GENERAL COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
• ICCPR General Comment 28 (Sixty-eighth session, 2000): Article 3: Equality of Rights Between Men and Women, A/55/40 vol. I (2000) 133 at para. 12.
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12. Having regard to their obligations under article 8, States parties should inform the Committee of measures taken to eliminate trafficking of women and children, within the country or across borders, and forced prostitution. They must also provide information on measures taken to protect women and children, including foreign women and children, from slavery, disguised, inter alia, as domestic or other kinds of personal service. States parties where women and children are recruited, and from which they are taken, and States parties where they are received should provide information on measures, national or international, which have been taken in order to prevent the violation of women’s and children’s rights.
• ICCPR General Comment 29 (Seventy-second session, 2001): Derogations from provisions of the Covenant during a state of emergency, A/56/40 vol. I (2001) 202 at para. 7.
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7. Article 4, paragraph 2, of the Covenant explicitly prescribes that no derogation from the following articles may be made: article 6 (right to life), article 7 (prohibition of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, or of medical or scientific experimentation without consent), article 8, paragraphs 1 and 2 (prohibition of slavery, slave-trade and servitude), article 11 (prohibition of imprisonment because of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation), article 15 (the principle of legality in the field of criminal law, i.e. the requirement of both criminal liability and punishment being limited to clear and precise provisions in the law that was in place and applicable at the time the act or omission took place, except in cases where a later law imposes a lighter penalty), article 16 (the recognition of everyone as a person before the law), and article 18 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion). The rights enshrined in these provisions are non-derogable by the very fact that they are listed in article 4, paragraph 2. The same applies, in relation to States that are parties to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant, for the undertaking to abolish the death penalty, as prescribed in article 6 of that Protocol. Conceptually, the qualification of a Covenant provision as a non-derogable one does not mean that no limitations or restrictions would ever be justified. The reference in article 4, paragraph 2, to article 18, a provision that includes a specific clause on restrictions in its paragraph 3, indicates that the permissibility of restrictions is independent of the issue of derogability. Even in times of most serious public emergencies, States that interfere with the freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief must justify their actions by referring to the requirements specified in article 18, paragraph 3. On several occasions the Committee has expressed its concern of rights that are non-derogable according to article 4, paragraph 2, being either derogated from or under a risk of derogation due to inadequacies in the legal regime of the State party.4/
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Notes
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4/ See the following Concluding Observations: Dominican Republic (1993), CCPR/C/79/Add.18, para. 4; Nepal (1994), CCPR/C/79/Add.42, para. 9; Jordan (1994), CCPR/C/79/Add.35, para. 6; Russian Federation (1995), CCPR/C/79/Add.54, para. 27; Zambia (1996), CCPR/C/79/Add.62, para. 11; Gabon (1996), CCPR/C/79/Add.71, para. 10; Colombia (1997), CCPR/C/79/Add.76, para. 25; Iraq (1997), CCPR/C/79/Add.84, para. 9; Armenia (1998), CCPR/C/79/Add.100, para. 7; Israel (1998), CCPR/C/79/Add.93, para. 11; Uruguay (1998) CCPR/C/79/Add.90, para. 8; Mongolia (2000), CCPR/C/79/Add.120, para. 14; Kyrgyzstan (2000), CCPR/CO/69/KGZ, para. 12.
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• CERD General Recommendation XXIX (Sixty-first session, 2002): On Article 1, Paragraph 1, of the Convention (Descent), A/57/18 (2002) 111 at paras. a and qq. For text of General Recommendation, see EQUALITY AND DISCRIMINATION - RACIAL DISCRIMINATION.
• ICCPR General Comment 24 (Fifty-second session, 1994): Issues Relating to Reservations Made upon Ratification or Accession to the Covenant or the Optional Protocols Thereto, or in Relation to Declarations under Article 41 of the Covenant, A/50/40 vol. I (1995) 119 at para. 8. For text of General Comment, see RESERVATIONS AND DECLARATIONS.
• ICESCR General Comment 5 (Eleventh session, 1994): Persons with Disabilities, E/1995/22 (1994) 99 at para. 21. For text of General Comment, see DISABILITY.