The drafting procedure of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which began in the Drafting Committee of the Commission on Human Rights during the spring of 1947, was not completed until the final version of the instrument was adopted by the General Assembly in 1966. Although a number of United Nations bodies were involved at various stages of the drafting, the Commission on Human Rights and the Third Committee of the General Assembly were its principal architects.

The Commission on Human Rights devoted its more or less continuous attention to the drafting of the Covenant from 1947 until 1954. Successive drafts were reworked at its annual meetings and then transmitted to the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly in the annual reports of the Commission. Occasionally, the General Assembly would redirect the Commission, as it did in 1951, when it divided the instrument into two separate ‘covenants’, one for civil and political rights and the other for economic, social and cultural rights. The right to life provision remained in the civil rights covenant, despite the fact that it also has an economic and social dimension. It was discussed at length by the Commission at its second, fifth, sixth and eighth sessions, in 1947, 1949, 1950 and 1952 respectively.

The final versions of the two draft covenants were adopted by the Commission on Human Rights at its tenth session, in 1954.