I cannot delete a layer, not locked, not frozen, with no entities on it

OBO Emile

I have a drawing with all layers but 3 are frozen and locked. The 3 thawed and unlocked layers (one of which is layer 0) contain no entities that I can see. I would like to know why I can't delete the 2 layers in question. I would also be interested in knowing the way to rectify this problem going forward.