The InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights: A Study on Bangladesh Compliance ABSTRACT This report evaluates the legal architecture of the protection of civil and political rights in the context of Bangladesh. To this end, in juxtaposition of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), this report critically examines the legal instruments guaranteeing civil and political rights as applicable in Bangladesh in order to identify the gap between international and national standards in this regard. The report also elucidates the noncompliance of international and national standards in state practice concerning these rights, and prescribes a set of recommendations for both legal reforms and law enforcement. 1. Introduction The German philosopher Immanuel Kant back in the late eighteenth century asserted that a State is a union of an aggregate of men. The act by which the people constitute a State for themselves is the original contract, through which all individual members of the people sacrifice their freedom that exists in the state of nature, in order to receive civil rights in return.1 Since all rights emanate from the legislative 1 I Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals (1797),” in Kant’s Political Writings, ed. H S Reiss, trans. H B Nisbet (NY: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 140. 17