A/HRC/42/21 6. In many instances, civilians acquire firearms illegally, taking advantage of illicit weapons flows to obtain firearms for use in violent crimes. Indeed, only 12 per cent of civilian firearms held globally were reported as registered in 2017.6 7. The contributions received from States and other stakeholders have helped to build a better understanding of the direct and indirect impact of firearms on human rights, and confirm that high levels of firearms in circulation among civilians lead to a broad range of acts that can affect a wide variety of human rights. A. Impact on civil and political rights 8. As provided by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their life and this right shall be protected by law. 7 The Human Rights Committee has stated in its general comment No. 36 (2018) on the right to life that the duty to protect the right to life includes an obligation for States to adopt any appropriate laws or other measures in order to protect life from all reasonably foreseeable threats, including from threats emanating from private persons and entities. 9. Civilian access to firearms has an impact on the right to life because it facilitates the commission of homicides. Firearms remain the most widely used instrument for perpetrating homicides worldwide and close to half of all homicides (46.3 per cent) are committed with a firearm, meaning that they are used in about 174,000 homicides per year. 8 In Latin America and the Caribbean, where homicide rates are the highest in the world, 9 recent estimates suggest that around 66 to 72 per cent of homicides involve firearms. 10 Data also suggests that civilian access to firearms increases firearm homicide rates in countries with high rates of lethal violence. In 2015 and 2016, for example, approximately half of all homicides in countries with high levels of lethal violence were committed with a firearm, as opposed to roughly 12 per cent in countries with low rates of lethal violence. 11 10. With regard to the application of lethal force in self-defence, the Human Rights Committee has stated that, in order to avoid violating the right to life, the application of lethal force by a private person must be strictly necessary in view of the threat posed by the attacker. It must also represent a method of last resort after other alternatives have been exhausted or deemed inadequate. In addition, the amount of force applied cannot exceed the amount strictly needed for responding to the threat, the force applied must be carefully directed only against the attacker, and the threat responded to must involve imminent death or serious injury.12 11. States should delineate the rules governing the use of force in self-defence in a way that abides by international human rights norms and standards. Jurisdictions with overly permissive self-defence laws that fall short of these requirements encourage the use of lethal force in situations where there is not a sufficient threat, and where this is combined with civilian access to firearms, it leads to an increase in homicides. 13 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Aaron Karp, “Estimating global civilian-held firearms numbers”, Small Arms Survey briefing paper, June 2018, p. 3. See art. 6. Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, Global Burden of Armed Violence 2015: Every Body Counts, p. 72. United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, “La necesaria vinculación entre las normas sobre violencia por motivos de género y las normas de regulación y control de armas pequeñas: el caso específico de Perú”, December 2017, p. 3. See the contributions of Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Sur File on Arms and Human Rights. Claire McEvoy and Gergely Hideg, Small Arms Survey, Global Violent Deaths 2017: Time to Decide, p. 12. Countries experiencing the highest levels of lethal violence were those with violent death rates of at least 20 per 100,000 inhabitants, whereas countries experiencing the lowest levels of lethal violence were those with violent death rates of less than 3 per 100,000 inhabitants. See the Committee’s general comment No. 36 (2018) on the right to life. See the contribution of Amnesty International. Moreover, the contribution of the Association Nationale de Promotion et de Protection des Droits de l’Homme (Cameroon) suggests that selfdefence killings form a considerable percentage of firearm-related homicides in insecure regions with 3