A/HRC/33/41 30. Childhood exposure to toxics occurs without the child’s (or parent’s) consent. Even if a parent were somehow able to identify every product and possible source of exposure to toxics that might harm their child, they are often powerless to do anything about it, particularly when it involves food, water or air pollution. Young children lack the physical and/or mental ability to vocalize opinions and understand the dangers and potential consequences of toxics until long after harm has been inflicted. This, for example, is why children are not allowed to buy cigarettes or alcohol until a certain age in many countries and are prohibited from working in hazardous conditions. 31. Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child protect the physical and mental integrity of children. States must protect children from “all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment”. 52 The Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 37) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (art. 7) require States to protect children from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 53 All regional human rights instruments recognize the right to physical integrity.54 32. The right to physical integrity is implicated by actions or inactions that give rise to contact, not by whether the contact resulted in adverse health impacts. For example: “The common law over the centuries has always protected individuals from unwanted intentional contacts with their person… The common law action of battery developed out of the law’s recognition of an individual’s interest in personal autonomy and bodily integrity — that is, the right of a person to participate in and make decisions about his own body.”55 33. Under international law, no derogation is allowed from the right to physical integrity. 56 Under the American Convention on Human Rights, the right of respect for physical integrity is explicitly non-derogable.57 Courts have interpreted strictly the right to physical integrity, such that even the medical, life-saving exposure to hazardous substances is a violation of a child’s right to physical integrity if without consent. Children have an unqualified right to effective prevention and protection from violence. 58 No form of violence against children is justifiable and all forms of violence against children are preventable.59 34. While the right to physical and mental integrity has traditionally been raised in connection with incarceration, interrogation and medical experimentation, this right is implicated by human exposure to toxics. Although acute poisonings and high levels of intoxication present an unquestionable violation of the right to physical integrity, this right also extends to chronic, low-level exposure to toxic substances. 35. The pervasive intrusion of toxics, a phenomenon and legal argument also known as “toxic trespass”, raises the question of whether States have taken the right of physical and mental integrity into account in the design of laws and policies. Policies are typically 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 19; and Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 4 (2003) on adolescent health and development in the context of the Convention, para. 8. Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 20 (1992) on article 7, paras. 2 and 5. See also Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 4, para. 8. American Convention on Human Rights, art. 5 (1); Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, art. 3; and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, art. 4. See People v. Medina, 705 P 2d 961 (1985). Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 20, para. 3. American Convention on Human Rights, art. 27. See A/61/299, para. 6. Ibid, para. 1. 9