The purpose of Article 4 is to provide states with a means to preserve themselves in emergencies but control how states can derogate their ICCPR obligations in pursuit of this goal.

Article 4(2) expressly identifies eight provisions of the ICCPR that a state cannot derogate, regardless of circumstances.

Article 15 of the European Convention allows Member States to derogate obligations in language paralleling that used in Article 4 of the ICCPR, save for the European Convention specifically acknowledging that war inherently threatens the life of a nation.

Secretary-General asserting an "emergency situation" threatening "the life of the nation" was underway, and Uruguay was invoking Article 4 to derogate from Article 25 of the ICCPR.

(109) Though Turkey's derogation notice identifies the rights it may derogate, it provides no explanation or method for why and how these rights may be derogated.

(120) Consistent recognition of a state's failure to adhere to Article 25, or misuse of Article 4 to derogate from Article 25, aims to draw attention to the state's lack of adherence to the ICCPR and pressures the state to remedy said deficiencies.

(156) Accordingly, Article 4 authorizes a state to derogate provisions for the protection of the "life of the nation," but, because of the pro-democracy purpose of the ICCPR, any exercise of Article 4 is impliedly required to protect, or at least not harm, democratic institutions even if they are not directly threatened.

In exercising Article 4 to derogate Article 25, Member States create a conflict of purposes because Article 4 is intended to protect the very institutions that the derogation of Article 25 would suspend.

Only two countries have attempted to derogate Article 25 in the history of the ICCPR, and in both instances the HRC has offered no explanation of what could justify the derogation of Article 25.

For both Uruguay and Turkey, the states' powers to derogate Article 25 is questioned, as derogating Article 25 seems to conflict with the pro-democracy purpose of the ICCPR and Article 4.

(169) As the "life of the nation" includes the democratic institutions enforced by Article 25, Article 4 cannot derogate Article 25 without itself "threatening the life of the nation." (170) The "life of the nation" includes the democratic institutions by which a community governs; for an ICCPR Member State, these democratic institutions are detailed in Article 25.