A/HRC/41/CRP.1 PART II. The execution of Mr. Kashoggi, state and individual responsibilities I. The right to Life 193. The right to life is a foundational and universally recognized right, applicable at all times and in all circumstances, including during armed conflict or other public emergency. This right to life is a norm of jus cogens, and is protected by international and regional treaties, customary international law and domestic legal systems. The “preservation of this right is one of the essential functions of the state and numerous provisions of national legislations establish guarantees to ensure the enjoyment of this right.”155 This responsibility to respect the right to life applies extraterritorially, at a minimum to those under the effective control of the State.156 194. The right to life has two components. The first and material component is that every person has a right to be free from the arbitrary deprivation of life: it places certain limitations on the use of force. The second and more procedural component is the requirement of proper investigation and accountability where there is reason to believe that an arbitrary deprivation of life may have taken place. 195. States are required to respect and to protect the right to life “by law”: “Deprivation of life is, as a rule, arbitrary if it is inconsistent with international law or domestic law.” 157 The “notion of ‘arbitrariness’ is not to be fully equated with ‘against the law’, but must be interpreted more broadly to include elements of inappropriateness, injustice, lack of predictability, and due process of law as well as elements of reasonableness, necessity, and proportionality.” 158 Arbitrary deprivation of life includes the intentional and often premeditated use of lethal State force outside of the judicial process – killings often referred to as extra-judicial executions. 196. Abuse of state power to bring about a politically sanctioned arbitrary killing against a specific group or individual ignores state obligations to ensure due process, and constitutes a violation of the fundamental right to life as well as a violation of the rule of law. Moreover, the wider impact that an intentional targeted killing has on society is an element that may distinguish these acts from other violations of the right to life. As a result of this abhorrent abuse of power and blatant disregard for the rule of law, extrajudicial killings have been considered, by the International Commission of Jurists, as a “grave human rights violation”.159 This categorization does not limit the scope of what falls under grave human rights violations but merely serves as an effort to describe the severity of extrajudicial killings. 160 197. Saudi Arabia is subject to this peremptory and customary norm and is obligated to respect the right to life. The Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia has ratified, recognizes that “[e]very human being has the inherent right to life”, that the “right shall be protected by law”, and that “[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” 161 In making this declaration of rights, the Arab Charter “reaffirms the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 38 A/37/564, p 22 General Comment 36, para. 63. General Comment 36, para. 12 Ibid International Commission of Jurists, Enforced Disappearance and Extrajudicial Execution: Investigation and Sanction A Practitioners Guide, http://icj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/12/Universal-Enforced-Disappearance-and-Extrajudicial-Execution-PGNo9Publications-Practitioners-guide-series-2015-ENG.pdf, 86. The terms of reference of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate “are not best understood through efforts to define individually the terms “extrajudicial”, “summary” or “arbitrary”, or to seek to categorize any given incident accordingly.” Report of the Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, E/CN.4/2005/7, 22 December 2004 para. 6. Arab Charter on Human Rights, Article 5.