One of the reasons international human rights law is so worthless in actual practice, is that half of it is framed like this. "Everyone has the right to X, except as duly restricted by law." Cool, so that's not a right at all then.

Ditto the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with its 'notwithstanding' clause. (Though they're presently litigating over that, so we'll see what happens!)

Any constitution or human rights instrument full of exemptions, 'emergency powers', 'notwithstanding' clauses, or 'states of exception' is not worth the paper it's written on.

Every contract I have to agree to these days has a "valid until unilaterally invalidated" clause. It feels like we're all just going through the motions.