themselves. The obligation to ‘ensure’ rights is interpreted as requiring States to prevent other actors from violating human rights. In General Comment 6, discussing the positive obligations imposed on States to protect the right to life, the UN Human Rights Committee refers to, amongst other things, the obligations to prevent, investigate and provide remedies for breaches. With regard to the former obligation, this might include the introduction of legislation, regulatory regimes or policies to address particular threats. Interpretation of the Right to Life The right to life has historically been viewed in the context of the use of lethal force by States against its citizens. However, the UN Human Rights Committee has specifically warned against a narrow interpretation of the right to life, 39 and states that the obligation on States is not simply to refrain from taking life, but also to take positive measures to protect life. 40 The threat posed by nuclear weapons is a case in point. The UN Human Rights Committee has noted that nuclear weapons do not only threaten the right to life because they may be used during hostilities; they threaten the right to life by potentially contaminating the environment with radiation. If such an interpretation is correct, pollutants contaminating the environment with a comparable effect may also be seen as a threat to the right to life. 41 In each case however, the severity and extent of harm will determine whether the right to life has been violated. 42 Regional systems have also considered a broader interpretation, with the AICtHR interpreting the right to life as beyond a right to physical survival, to include a right to a dignified existence. 43 The ECHR has also addressed a number of non-traditional threats to the right to life, such as nuclear testing and the regulation of essential services, and has held that a State has an obligation to take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of those within its jurisdiction 44 and against any dangerous activity, public or private. 45 This has been considered to include regulation, such as in connection with the treatment of patients in both public and private hospitals.46 It has also been extended to an obligation to provide information about possible threats to life.47 In the Asia Pacific region, courts, tribunals and other decision makers are testing more innovative interpretations encompassing quality of life issues. The Indian Courts have perhaps been most successful. The constitutionally protected right to life has been interpreted by the courts as implicitly including the right to a clean environment. In Charan Lal Sahu v Union of India, the Supreme Court interpreted the provision to include the right to a wholesome environment.48 In Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar, the Supreme Court extended this approach, 39 See: UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 6: The Right to Life, U.N. Doc. HR/GEN/1/Rev1 at 6 (1994) at paras 1 and 5. 40 Ibid, at para 5. 41 Asia Pacific Forum, above n 4, 58, 62–3. 42 See generally ibid 57–8, 62–3, 66. 43 Ibid. See also Indigenous Community of Yakye Axa v Paraguay, 6 February 2006, Interpretation of the Judgement on the Merits, at para 160 - 167. However, note that in a statement likely to be echoed in European jurisdictions, the Belgian Courts have specifically rejected such an approach to the right to life in the European Convention: “le droit à la vie au sens de l’article 2 de la Convention de sauvegarde des droits de l’homme n’est que le droit à la vie physique au sens usuel du terme et non le droit à une vie que l’individu concerné peut subjetivement qualifier de ‘décente’”. “the right to life in Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of Man is the right to physical life, in the usual sense of the term, not the right to a quality of life that the individual in question would consider decent” (informal translation). (Belgian Court of Cassation, Judgment of 5 February 1985, Cassl, Pasicrisie Belge, Dr. I at 670, 680 44 See: L.C.B. v The United Kingdom, 23413/94, [1998] ECHR 49 (9 June 1998), and Calvelli and Ciglio v Italy, 32967/96, [2002] ECHR 3 (17 January 2002). This case involved the child of a serviceman who had been present at nuclear tests. The child developed leukaemia, which she attributed to her father’s possible exposure to radiation. The Court ultimately found that there was no violation of her right to life because the evidence available to the State did not suggest that the father had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. The Court did find that the State is obliged to take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of those within its jurisdiction, and suggested, without deciding, that it could be argued that had the State believed that she was at risk of a life threatening illness due to her father’s radiation exposure, the authorities would have been obliged to provide this information to her parents whether or not they believed that it would assist the applicant (at para 40). See also Calvelli and Ciglio v Italy, at para 49. 45 Oneryildiz v Turkey, 48939/99, [2004] ECHR 657 (30 November 2004). 46 Calvelli and Ciglio v Italy, op. cit., Note 159. 47 L.C.B. v The United Kingdom, op. cit., Note 159. 48 Charan Lal Sahu v Union of India (1990) AIR SC 1480 in Razzaque, above n 346. - 18 -