The typology of States' obligations and the obligation to respect human rights

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Part II seeks to introduce the substantive content of international human rights. It includes five chapters. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 discuss the three levels of obligations imposed on States: to respect, to protect and to fulfil human rights. Chapter 6 describes under which conditions rights may be derogated from in times of emergency. Chapter 7 examines the non-discrimination requirement, which cuts across the different obligations imposed on States, and is a core principle of human rights law, with a number of different ramifications. Although this chapter focuses on the obligation of States to respect human rights, it first explores the origins of the distinction between the three levels of States' obligations, since it is on this distinction that chapters 3–5 are based. Section 1 describes the respect /protect/fulfil framework, and it then relates this framework to the ‘4-As' scheme (availability, accessibility, adequacy and adaptability), which is also widely used in order to clarify the implications for States of ensuring compliance with social and economic rights. While the respect/protect/fulfil framework has its basis in discussions around the normative content of the right to food, and the 4-As scheme originated in work around the right to education, both typologies have been used beyond these rights, although the usefulness of expanding their reach is still debated, particularly as regard civil and political rights. Sections 2 and 3 examine the obligation to respect human rights, focusing respectively on rights of an ‘absolute’ character and other rights, which may be subject to certain limitations.