States of Emergency - Centre for Policy Alternatives

Emergency
 Situations, the Court held that Article 27 may be
availed of in ‘exceptional situations only.’ 194
In one of the earliest standard setting exercises in this area, the
Questiaux Report (1982) submitted to the UN Sub‐commission on
Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities,
observed that emergency powers may only be invoked in
‘exceptional circumstances’, which in turn was described in the
following terms:
“…temporary factors of a generally political character
which in varying degrees involve extreme and imminent
danger, threatening the organised existence of the nation,
that is to say, the political and social system as a State, and
which may be deLined as follows: ‘a crisis situation
affecting the population of the whole and constituting a
threat to the organised existence of the community which
forms the basis of the State’…When such circumstances
arise, then both municipal law, whatever its theoretical
basis, and international law on human rights allow the
suspension of the exercise of certain rights with the aim
of rectifying the situation, and indeed protecting the most
fundamental rights.” 195
As noted earlier, the most widely quoted sets of principles
reLlecting international best practice are the Paris Minimum
Standards and Siracusa Principles. The Paris Minimum Standards
194
Habeas
Corpus
in
Emergency
Situations, Advisory Opinion, (1987) 8
Inter‐Am.Ct.HR (ser. A) 33, OEA/ser.L/V/111.17.doc.13 (1987)
195
Nicole Questiaux (1982) Study
of
the
Implications
for
Human
Rights
of
Recent
Developments
Concerning
Situations
Known
as
States
of
Siege
or
Emergency, UN ESCOR, 35 th Sess., UN Doc.E/CN.4/Sub.
2/1982/15 (1982), para.23 at p.8
119