A/HRC/17/28* 133. Regularly updating codes of conduct for the police and increasing “police knowledge” are indispensible, as is the existence of independent police complaints agencies. IV. Conclusions 134. Two of the main grounds on which rights in the context of demonstrations may be limited are the maintenance of public order, and protection of the rights of others. Divergent views on the limitations and the use of force during public protest turn on an emphasis on either of these two. The escalated force approach reflects a preference for the protection of public order; the negotiated management approach, which focuses on the preservation of peace, hinges the question as to whether protest should be curtailed on whether the rights of others are threatened. 135. Likewise, as has been pointed out, the central distinction made by domestic legal systems tends to be between legal and illegal protest, while international law is rather inclined to draw the line between non-violent and violent protests. The concern of the former centres around public order; the latter prioritises the preservation of peace as the objective for police or other State intervention. 136. Under the public order paradigm, it is not difficult to argue that rights – including the right to life – may be limited during protest actions. However, if the starting point is that rights should be limited only to protect the rights of others, the bar is set higher. The life of one person may be sacrificed only if it is necessary to protect the life of others. 137. There can be no doubt about the importance of both maintenance of public order and protection of the rights of others. However, it is also clear that in some of the life-and-death situations presented by demonstrations, the emphasis on one of these two approaches will lead to different decisions on whether to use firearms. Given the status of the right to life as the supreme human right, and the irreversible nature of decisions involving lethal force, if the generally more generous approach advanced by international standards is ever to play a role, it will have to be in this context. 138. Based on the above overview of the norms in respect of the use of force by the police during demonstrations, it can be concluded that it is problematic to make rigid distinctions between grounds for the limitation of the right to life into the categories of self-defence, arrest and riot control. The impression is created that the standards differ, and indeed, as we have seen at the domestic level, countries often implement lower standards of scrutiny in respect of the use of lethal force during demonstrations. It is proposed that over time, the centrality of the norm of self-defence, as the guiding principle for the use of deadly force, should be asserted more strongly. 139. In the future, when the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials and other instruments are revised, the overreaching principle in respect of the use of deadly weapons by law enforcement officials should be self-defence. Reference to arrest or riot control should be secondary and focused on implementation in those contexts. Another way of putting it would be to see the overriding norm as “necessary measures of law enforcement to protect life.” 45 45 Rodley, The treatment of prisoners under international law (see para. 53, fn. 24), p. 252. 21