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41 does not mean that this procedure is the only method by which States Parties can assert their
interest in the performance of other States Parties. On the contrary, the article 41 procedure
should be seen as supplementary to, not diminishing of, States Parties’ interest in each others’
discharge of their obligations. Accordingly, the Committee commends to States Parties the view
that violations of Covenant rights by any State Party deserve their attention. To draw attention
to possible breaches of Covenant obligations by other States Parties and to call on them to
comply with their Covenant obligations should, far from being regarded as an unfriendly act, be
considered as a reflection of legitimate community interest.
3.
Article 2 defines the scope of the legal obligations undertaken by States Parties to the
Covenant. A general obligation is imposed on States Parties to respect the Covenant rights and
to ensure them to all individuals in their territory and subject to their jurisdiction (see paragraph
10 below). Pursuant to the principle articulated in article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the
Law of Treaties, States Parties are required to give effect to the obligations under the Covenant
in good faith.
4.
The obligations of the Covenant in general and article 2 in particular are binding on
every State Party as a whole. All branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial),
and other public or governmental authorities, at whatever level - national, regional or local - are
in a position to engage the responsibility of the State Party. The executive branch that usually
represents the State Party internationally, including before the Committee, may not point to the
fact that an action incompatible with the provisions of the Covenant was carried out by another
branch of government as a means of seeking to relieve the State Party from responsibility for
the action and consequent incompatibility. This understanding flows directly from the principle
contained in article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, according to which a
State Party ‘may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to
perform a treaty’. Although article 2, paragraph 2, allows States Parties to give effect to
Covenant rights in accordance with domestic constitutional processes, the same principle
operates so as to prevent States parties from invoking provisions of the constitutional law or
other aspects of domestic law to justify a failure to perform or give effect to obligations under
the treaty. In this respect, the Committee reminds States Parties with a federal structure of the
terms of article 50, according to which the Covenant’s provisions ‘shall extend to all parts of
federal states without any limitations or exceptions’.