Non-derogable Rights during State of Emergency: Evaluation of the Ethiopian Legal Framework in Light of International Standards

Abstract

Human rights are entitlements everyone enjoys merely for being human. These rights are inter alia, inalienable, irreducible and inherent in every human being who lives in society by its nature. Yet, the claims of the individual members of the society to exercise these inherent rights cannot be treated in isolation for human kind is a social being. Rather, it is conceived in the light of the network of rights and duties within the society at large, and thus, there are also potential conflicts between the claims of individuals and society at large. This requires the need to have, at least, temporal suspension on fundamental human rights and freedoms for the sake of social interests, the claims of other members of the society, and to make the exercise of such claims (rights) meaningful. However, there are certain human rights (non-derogable) that may never be suspended or restricted even during a state of emergency. This article deals with how the Ethiopian Constitution addresses these non- derogable human rights during a state of emergency. Accordingly, the only non-derogable [human] rights under the Ethiopian Constitution are the prohibition against inhuman treatment (Art.18), and the rights to equality (Art.25). The Ethiopian constitutional listing of non-derogable rights is far less than what the core international human rights instruments enumerate. Remarkably, the Ethiopian Constitution includes a set of rights nomenclature of the state and self-determination– as non-derogable rights that are not recognized as non-derogable under the core international human right instruments.