A/HRC/30/18 irrevocable castration”.7 The Hungarian Constitutional Court has held that capital punishment imposes a limitation on the essential content of the fundamental rights to life and human dignity, eliminating them irretrievably. The Court stressed the relationship between the rights to life and dignity, and the absolute nature of these two rights, which together were the source of all other rights. 8 In the Makwanyane case, the South African Constitutional Court found that the death penalty was unconstitutional and observed that “the rights to life and dignity are the most important of all human rights and the source of all other personal rights … By committing ourselves to a society founded on the recognition of human rights we are required to value these two rights above all others. And this must be demonstrated by the State in everything that it does, including the way it punishes criminals���.9 B. Right to life 10. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person, while article 6 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that every human being has the inherent right to life, which is to be protected by law, and that no one is to be arbitrarily deprived of his life. In its general comment No. 6 (1982) on the right to life, the Human Rights Committee described the right to life as the supreme right. The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution referred to it as “the ultimate metaright, since no other right can be enjoyed without it” (see A/67/275, para. 12) and “the most important and basic of human rights. It is the fountain from which all human rights spring. If it is infringed, the effects are irreversible” (see E/CN.4/1983/16, para. 22). 11. More than 40 years ago, in December 1971, the General Assembly, in its resolution 2857 (XXVI), stated that in order fully to guarantee the right to life, provided for in article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the main objective to be pursued was that of progressively restricting the number of offences for which capital punishment might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing that punishment in all countries. The international move towards abolition gained new impetus with the adoption in 1989 of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, which to date has been ratified by 81 States. 12. The drafters of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights already paved the way towards the abolition of the death penalty in 1966 by mentioning the death penalty as an exception to the right to life, which should in no way be “invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment” (art. 6 (6)) and by establishing stringent conditions under which it could be used. Trends with regard to the implementation of the stringent conditions contained in article 6 (2–5) can be gleaned from recent quinquennial and annual reports of the Secretary-General on the use of the death penalty (see, for example, E/2010/10 and E/2015/49). 13. The Council of Europe has adopted two instruments prohibiting the use of capital punishment: protocols No. 6 (1983) and No. 13 (2002) to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concerning the abolition of the death penalty. Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also provides that no one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed. The Protocol to 7 8 9 See http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/785/index.do. See www.mkab.hu/letoltesek/en_0023_1990.pdf. See https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/12436. 5