States of Emergency - Centre for Policy Alternatives

from particular groups and constituting a threat to the organised
life of the community which composes the State in question.’ 227 In
the Greek
 Case, it was held that Article 15 applies to imminent
threats, but the right to derogate can be exercised only when the
State in question provides sufLicient evidence to prove the
existence of such a threat. 228
In addition to the exceptional nature of the threat, the Human
Rights Committee has held that derogations may only last as long
as the emergency actually exists. Therefore it is clear that
exceptional threats requiring derogations can only, within the
meaning of Article 4, be of a temporary nature.
In the light of the textual formulation of Article 4 of ‘exceptional
threat’ and its interpretation by the Human Rights Committee,
Oraá provides the following useful summary of characteristics of
the type emergency envisaged in the ICCPR:
1. The emergency must be actual or at least imminent; therefore
an emergency of a ‘preventive’ nature is not lawful.
2. The emergency should be of such magnitude as to affect the
whole of the nation, and not just part of it.
3. The threat must be to the very existence of the nation, this
being understood as a threat to the physical integrity of the
227
Lawless
v.
Ireland (1960‐1961) 1 Eur.Ct.HR (ser. B) 56 (Commission
Report)
228
Denmark,
Norway,
Sweden
and
Netherlands
v.
Greece
(1969) 1
European Court of Human Rights, The
Greek
Case: Report of the
Commission (1969): para.153
143