A nation has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Several provisions of the Covenant protect family rights:
Article 17. “1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. 2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
Article 23. “1. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. 2. The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized.”Article 24. “1. Every child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.”
For the purpose of limiting population growth, a nation imposes a building ban in a particular area. As a result, newly-married couples often cannot find a home to live in, and so have to move elsewhere. Also, growing families are not allowed to remodel their houses in order to make the house larger for the additional children.
Do the nation’s policies violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights? What if the nation forbids people in the area to marry, but allows them to marry if they move to a different area? What if the nation forbids or rations births which are legally allowed in the area, but allows unlimited births elsewhere? If there is a violation of the ICCPR, then is it a violation of the ICCPR for other countries to encourage and/or pressure the nation to continue its current course of conduct? For purposes of this question, presume that all relevant nations have ratified the ICCPR, and ignore the question of whether the ratification makes the Covenant self-executing.
The particular question arises in regard to Judea and Samaria, where Israel, under pressure from the U.S. government, has drastically restricted construction in many communities, so that there is not enough housing to accommodate “natural growth” in population (meaning growth caused by generation-to-generation population increase, rather than growth caused by immigration). For details, see Haaretz (building restrictions), the Jewish Telegraph Agency (Peres tells Biden that Israel can’t tell settlers not to get married and have children), and Ynet (which says that some new building is taking place).
In the comments, please keep the focus on the legal issues, rather than pro/con debates over Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. The only exception to this instruction is if your answer itself depends on some related legal issue. For example, “Normally, the restrictions would violate the ICCPR, but the restrictions are permissible because Israelis living in Judea and Samaria is itself of a violation of X international law, and for Y reason, Israel’s legal obligation to obey X trumps Israel’s obligation to obey the ICCPR.”