The doctrine of human rights is the articulation in the public morality of world politics of the idea that each person is a subject of global concern. It does not matter what a person’s spatial loca-tion might be or which political subdivision or social group the person might belong to. Everyone has human rights, and responsibilities to respect and protect these rights may, in principle, extend across political and social boundaries. In the article that follows this short introduction I propose to approach the sensitive theme of self defense exception to the right to life protected by the European Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental freedoms. The European convention comes closer to making clear what the actual content of the right to life, where it has a substantive meaning, actually is, and it is placed in the first substantive article: ‘Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court…’ There was, until recently, only one justiciable, nega-tive right, meaning to the right to life, which was to control or ban the use of capital punishment (as we will see the death sentence). Any other meaning of the right to life made it some form of positive right exhortation to the state to do everything in its power to protect the supreme right, sometimes with exact exceptions who are made for protecting the right to life even if it authorizes the use of lethal force.