A/HRC/26/36 wishes to express his thanks to the 25 States that responded by providing their laws and in many cases also detailed commentary: Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Chile, Cuba, Cyprus, Ecuador, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Iraq, Ireland, Mexico, Monaco, Norway, Pakistan, Qatar, Russian Federation, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland and the Syrian Arab Republic. 36. In the case of States that have not responded, legislation was obtained from what is available in the public domain. 37. The study looks only at legislation, and not at other sources of law, such as legal precedents (which in some States are a source of law) or at the operational orders of the police. Some of the elements of a comprehensive system regulating the use of force may not be recognized in the statutory provisions, but could be contained in other parts of the law. 38. Importantly, the study also does not consider the practical implementation of the laws in question. This is a massive task to which the international research community – in particular those researchers based in the societies in question – should pay more attention. 39. The study concentrates only on the use of force as part of law enforcement operations, and does not deal with the use of force in the conduct of hostilities during armed conflict. 40. The laws that were accessed during the course of this study are available at www.use-of-force.info. This website will be maintained and updated in the future. States that have not yet submitted their laws to the Special Rapporteur, and other interested parties, are encouraged to send their laws and additional material, including new laws, judicial decisions and operational orders, as well as training material. 41. In this report, not all of the full names and references of the laws cited are provided, in the interests of space, and because the aim is rather to provide an example of a wider practice than to single out specific States. C. The right to life 42. The right to life is often described as a fundamental human right; a right without which all other rights would be devoid of meaning.10 The right is recognized in a variety of widely ratified global and regional treaties and other instruments.11 Article 6(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that “every human being has the inherent right to life [which] right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” The right to life is also a rule of customary international law12 and it has been described as part of jus cogens.13 Extensive jurisprudence has been developed on all levels, on the limits on the use of force by law enforcement officials. 43. On the global stage, two main “soft law” instruments set out in some detail the conditions under which force may be used by law enforcement officials and the 10 11 12 13 Manfred Nowak, UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. CCPR Commentary, Kehl am Rhein. Engel, 2005, p. 121. African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, art. 4; American Convention on Human Rights, art. 4; Arab Charter on Human Rights, art. 5; European Convention on Human Rights, art. 2; and ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, art. 11. Moeckli et al. (eds.) International Human Rights Law, New York, Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 221. See Nowak (footnote 10), p. 122. 7