Il rilievo della Dichiarazione universale dei diritti umani nella definizione del diritto alla libertà e alla sicurezza personale

The right to liberty and security of person is enshrined in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration. The drafters clearly attached great importance to this right. Not only did they include it in one of the first provisions of the Declaration alongside the right to life, but they also decided to expressly prohibit arbitrary deprivations of liberty in a separate provision (Article 9). This chapter investigates the influence that the Universal Declaration has had on the development and interpretation of the numerous treaty-based rules that now establish the right(s) at hand, as well as on the (debated) emergence of relevant customary international rules, by focusing on the Declaration itself and its travaux préparatoires. The aim is to ascertain how the drafting of the Universal Declaration has influenced the definition of this right internationally and whether the definitional issues that emerged at the time still inform the current debate on personal liberty and security.