| Chapter 2: | Investigative Detention and International Human Rights Law |
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guaranteed rights, and with the promotion of these rights,”26 and consists of those international rules, procedures, and institutions developed to protect and promote international human rights obligations.27 The core of this field of law is composed of the United Nations Charter and related instruments. Three instruments, however, are largely considered to be among the most important: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (“ICESCR”).28 Other regional instruments, such as the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”), also play an important role. Cassel detailed a list of several international human rights instruments that touch upon a state's power to detain individuals.29 The most salient instruments for purposes of this analysis, however, are the ICCPR and the ECHR.
The International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights
The ICCPR was adopted in New York on December 16, 1966. It entered into force for the United States on September 8, 1992. The Senate resolution giving its advice and consent to ratification was adopted on April 2, 1992, subject to five reservations, five understandings, and four declarations.30 The ICCPR articulates many of the same human rights articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but focuses (as its name implies) on those rights that are considered “civil and political.”31 These rights are “essentially those civil and political rights reflected in the Western, liberal, democratic tradition,”32 and are “primarily limitations upon the power of the State to impose its will upon the people under its jurisdiction.”33
Specific rights enumerated in the ICCPR include freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; freedom of opinion and expression; freedom of association; the right of peaceful assembly; the right to vote; equal protection of the law; the right to liberty and security of the person; the right to a fair trial (including the presumption of innocence); the right of privacy;