On December 27, 1967, the American Association for the International Commission of Jurists (AAICJ) was founded for the purpose of upholding and strengthening the principles of human rights and the rule of law throughout the world. To this end, it cooperates with the International Commission of Jurists, a Geneva-based international non-governmental organization. The Association works closely with the American Bar Association and state and local bar associations, legal scholars, Members of the United States Congress, the Department of State and other organizations and individuals in related fields to prepare and provide the most recent information on human rights it
The AAICJ had long observed that one of the main instruments used by governments to repress and deny the fundamental rights and freedoms of peoples recognized under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the Covenant), to which the United States is a State signatory, had been the illegal and unwarranted Declaration of Martial Law or a State of Emergency. The applicable provisions allowing governments to limit and derogate from certain rights had been abused.
Consequently, in the spring of 1984, AAICJ initiated a colloquium of 31 distinguished experts in International law at Siracusa, Italy to examine the conditions and grounds for permissible limitations and derogations from certain rights contained in the Covenant.
The participants examined the limitation and derogation provisions in the Covenant seeking to identify:
1. their legitimate objectives
2. the general principles of interpretation which govern their imposition and application; and
3. some of the main features of the grounds for limitation or derogation
The product of this examination is a set of principles known as the Siracusa Principles (the Principles). These Principles reflect the present state of international law.
With respect to the varying societal limitations put in force as the world grappled with COVID, especially as they compelled persons of faith to explicitly secure their protected human right of Religious Liberty, I draw your attention to the following finding set forth in the Principles:
SECTION II. Derogations in a Public Emergency
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D. Non-Derogable Rights
58. No state party shall, even in time of emergency threatening the life of the nation, derogate from the Covenant’s guarantees of the right to life; freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and from medical or scientific experimentation without free consent; freedom from slavery or involuntary servitude; the right not be be imprisoned for contractual debt; the right not to be convicted or sentenced to a heavier penalty by virtue of retroactive criminal legislation; the right to recognition as a person before the law; and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. These rights are not derogable under any conditions even for the asserted purpose of preserving the life of the nation.
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63. The provisions of the Covenant allowing for certain derogations in a public emergency are to be interpreted restrictively.
For the original language in the Covenant supporting the findings I direct your attention to the following:
PART II
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Article 4
1. In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed,...
2. No derogation from articles 6 , 7, 8 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18 may be made under this provision.
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PART III
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Article 7
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.
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Article 18
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
2. No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
Since these specific rights shall not be derogated, examination of the specific, applicable portions of the language is in order:
From Article 7: “No one shall be subject to...degrading treatment or punishment.”
To have the Federal Government say to an individual, “You will violate your religious convictions or be relieved of your position of employment,” which manifestly jeopardizes the household economy of the individual, and cascades to innumerable derivative psychological, economic, and relational harms — THAT absolutely rises to the level of “degrading treatment or punishment” and it is forbidden.
Also from Article 7: “...no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.”
FDA Certification of one particular genetic therapeutic preparation is limited in applicability, overly hasty in issuance, lacking in respect to necessary criteria typical to such Certification, and therefore questionable in scientific and medical validity; the aforementioned deficiencies evidencing most clearly that the rushed Certification is mostly political in nature. More broadly, though, all of the various injections deployed for use against COVID19 lack the typically necessary long-term trials designed to prove both effectiveness and safety. Manifestly, therefore, everyone in the world has become a participant in a global clinical trial of new pharmaceutical products heretofore unavailable, and having no prior track record. Against the all-encompassing backdrop of this inescapable reality, an FDA Certification that technically removes from one or more of these products the legal “experimental” classification scarcely qualifies even as a metaphorical fig leaf. Clearly the use of these various injections remains a worldwide medical experiment, with clinical trial data continuing to be gathered, and the demand that an individual must be subjected to this experiment or face grievous potential personal economic losses crushes free consent, and it is forbidden.
From Article 18: “1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have...a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom...in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”
The freedom to have a religion of one’s choice is meaningless apart from the freedom to observe and practice that religion. The practice of any religion that esteems unborn humans as living human persons proscribes absolutely every possible transgression against them, and proscribes absolutely every possible desecration of their bodies should any event result in their decease. This includes, without limitation, the harvest or use of any bodily tissues from such deceased persons for any purpose other than autopsy, lab work, or other immediate medical investigation necessary to a determination of cause of death.* All of the genetic therapeutic formulations thus far available to combat COVID-19, at some point in their development or manufacture, employ cultured human cells descended from tissue obtained through the desecration of the bodies of human persons willfully terminated in utero. Because adherents to religions that esteem the unborn as human persons are bound by religious observance and practice to refuse any product produced in this manner, the demand that they consent to accept such products is hostile to their freedom to observe and practice their religion, and it is forbidden to so demand.
“2. No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.”
No person adhering to a religion that esteems unborn humans as living persons may accept any substance that at any point in its development or production employed cultured human cells descended from tissues originally obtained from persons willfully terminated in utero. Coercion to do otherwise impairs the individual’s freedom to observe or practice such a religion, which, therefore also impairs the freedom to even have such a religion, and it is forbidden.
“3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.”
Statistical data available at this date do not establish that any limitations of the freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs are at all necessary to “protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.” For further guidance I direct your attention, again, to the Principles:
SECTION II. Derogations in a Public Emergency
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D. Non-Derogable Rights
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63. The provisions of the Covenant allowing for certain derogations in a public emergency are to be interpreted restrictively.
A restrictive interpretation of Article 18(3) might permit derogation in the face of a far more deadly threat; a resurgence of smallpox, with it’s 30% death rate, would stand as a credible example. No restrictive interpretation of Article 18(3) is credibly permissive of derogation in the face of COVID-19; nothing with an across-the-board survival rate in fractions of 1% credibly supersedes any person’s access to their internationally recognized human rights of freedom of religion and conscience.
* — I here except such rare cases as the transplant of an organ from the deceased to save the life of another; all authoritative parties agreeing in advance, and the demise of the unborn not having been caused willfully to execute upon that purpose.
Many people, across many different communities of faith, have strong personal objections of conscience and of religious faith to the use of cultured human cell lines that have been harvested from aborted children. Unfortunately, this is presently the case with all the COVID19 “vaccines” available today. Neither conscience nor religious faith permit these to avail themselves of any substance so produced, and this is a position that is protected explicitly as a non-derogable right by the Covenant, as identified by the Sircusa Principles.
That we came to this place is an egregious burden upon human rights of conscience and religion as people were put under extreme psychological duress, and made gravely uncertain that their religious rights would be preserved to them whole; and faced the loss of employment, of income, of housing, and of sustenance should they be denied exemption. This is an unconscionable moment for our free republican society, incompatible with our national ethos, with our founding principles, and with all duly recognized international Law and practice pertaining to human rights. Bluntly, this is a gross national shame
REFERENCES:
ARTICLE: “An Open Letter to the New South Wales Premier and Minister for Health and Medical Research” Deacon Stephen McKay, August 24, 2021,
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/open-letter-nsw-premier-minister-health-medical-research-mckay/
ARTICLE: “Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” July 1, 1984,
https://www.icj.org/siracusa-principles-on-the-limitation-and-derogation-provisions-in-the-international-covenant-on-civil-and-political-rights/
DOCUMENT: “The Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”,
https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/1984/07/Siracusa-principles-ICCPR-legal-submission-1985-eng.pdf
“42 U.S. Code CHAPTER 21B—RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/chapter-21B
“42 U.S. Code § 2000bb - Congressional findings and declaration of purposes”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000bb
