Is there a legal obligation under international law to register death, including during extraordinary circumstances?

Ressler, A.-E. (2025) Is there a legal obligation under international law to register death, including during extraordinary circumstances? PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: 10.48683/1926.00125120

Abstract/Summary

Death registration is essential to the protection of individual and collective life. Though birth registration is codified under international law, universal, comprehensive, and compulsory death registration is not an explicit obligation. The official recording of births, deaths and other vital events through civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems is widely recognized as an essential government function and CRVS systems exist in every country in the world, to varying degrees. However, the lack of an explicit international obligation is an obstacle to universal death registration, allowing states to exclude groups of people, intentionally or unintentionally. As such, some persons remain invisible in life as in death, which has deep implications for the rule of law and the development and implementation of law-making and public policy. In extraordinary and crises situations, gaps in death registration can result in impunity for gross violations of human rights, among other things. This thesis seeks to answer the following question: Is death registration an emerging or existing norm under international law? By so doing, it seeks to advance progress in establishing universal, compulsory, comprehensive death registration around the world, to address impunity, advance equality and support socio-economic development, against the backdrop of climate change. My research concludes that there is both an international customary obligation to register the dead, as well as an implicit obligation under international human rights law, particularly to the right to life and the right to effective remedy, applicable to all persons, in all circumstances.

Item Type	Thesis (PhD)
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/125120
Identification Number/DOI	10.48683/1926.00125120
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Law
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