The ECHR in Iraq: The judgment of the House of Lords in R (Al-Skeini) v. Secretary of State for Defence

Journal of International Criminal Justice

Volumn 6, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 115-128

  Thienel, Tobias ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 41449117105     PISSN: 14781387     EISSN: 14781395     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jicj/mqm077     Document Type: Article

References (133)

1. R (Al-Skeini) v. Secretary of State for Defence [2007] UKHL 26, [2007] 3 WLR 33, [2007] 3 All ER 685, also available online at www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2007/26.html (hereinafter: Al-Skeini (HL)). The Appellate Committee comprised Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry. Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Carswell, and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. Lord Bingham dissented.
2. The most comprehensive statement of the facts appears in the judgment of the Divisional Court (Rix LJ and Forbes J), at first instance: R (Al-Skeini) v. Secretary of State for Defence [2004] EWHC 2911 (Admin), [2005] 2 WLR 1401, [2007] QB 140, §§ 56-89 (hereinafter: Al-Skeini (DC)).
3. See on the technique chosen Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §§ 10 (per Lord Bingham), 134 (per Lord Brown).
4. Ibid., §§ 2-4 (per Lord Bingham), 85 (per Baroness Hale), 95 (per Lord Carswell), 102 (per Lord Brown).
5. Lord Bingham dissented on this point, and declined to express an opinion on the ECHR issue: Ibid., §§ 8-33.
6. Ibid., §§ 11 (per Lord Bingham), 44 (per Lord Rodger), 137 (per Lord Brown).
7. Ibid., §45 (per Lord Rodger).
8. See also ibid., §§ 49 (per Lord Rodger), 86-88 (per Baroness Hale), 96 (per Lord Carswell), and now Office of Fair Trading v. Lloyds TSB Bank plc [2007] UKHL 48, [2007] 3 WLR 733, §4 (per Lord Hoffmann): 'extra-territorial effect [within the meaning of the presumption] means seeking to regulate the conduct... of people over whom the United Kingdom has no jurisdiction'.
9. Ibid., §54 (per Lord Rodger). Baroness Hale and Lord Carswell agreed, at §§ 88, 96.
10. See also R (Quark Fishing Ltd.) v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2005] UKHL 57, [20061 1 AC 529, §§ 25 ( per Lord Bingham), 34 (per Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead); R (Al-Jedda) v. Secretary of State for Defence [2006] EWCA Civ 327, [2007] QB 621, §§ 88-98.
11. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §§ 56-59 (per Lord Rodger), 88 (per Baroness Hale), 138-140 (per Lord Brown). Lord Carswell agreed with Lord Rodger, at §96.
12. Ibid., §§ 65-66 (per Lord Rodger), 90 (per Baroness Hale), 105-107 (per Lord Brown).
13. S. 2 HRA provides only that such precedent is to be 'take[n] into account'. It is not binding authority: R (Alconbury Developments Ltd.) v. Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions [2001] UKHL 23, [2003] 2 AC 295, §26 (per Lord Slynn of Hadley).
14. Ibid.; R (Ullah) v. Special Adjudicator [2004] UKHL 26, [2004] 2 AC 323, §20 (per Lord Bingham).
15. For the sixth case see infra, Part 3 C.
16. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §67 (per Lord Rodger).
17. See also ibid., §§ 90-91 (per Baroness Hale), 97 (per Lord Carswell).
18. Ibid., §68 (per Lord Rodger).
19. Loizidou v. Turkey (Preliminary Objections) (GC), ECHR (1995) Series A, No. 310,24
20. Loizidou v. Turkey (Merits) (GC), ECHR RJD 1996-VI, 2216, 2234-2235
21. Djavit An v. Turkey, ECHR RJD 2003-III, 231, 240-242
22. Ilaşcu and Others v. Moldova and Russia (GC), ECHR RJD 2004-VII, 179, 263.
23. Cyprus v. Turkey (GC), ECHR RJD 2001-IV, 1, 25. The Court had earlier repeated verbatim the 'effective control' test from Loizidou (Merits): Ibid.
24. See Banković and Others v. Belgium and Others (GC), ECHR RJD 2001-XII, 333, 358
25. R (Al-Skeini) v. Secretary of State for Defence [2005] EWCA Civ 1609, [2006] 3 WLR 508, [2007] QB 140, §193 (per Sedley Lj) (hereinafter: Al-Skeini (CA))
26. Al-Skeini (DC), supra note 2, §§ 249, 304, 305.
27. Banković, supra note 19, at 358-359 (paragraph breaks and all italics in the original).
28. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §§ 71, 76-77 (per Lord Rodger), 109, 127 (per Lord Brown). Baroness Hale and Lord Carswell agreed, at §§ 91, 97.
29. (2004) 41 EHRR 567. Not reported in the ECHR RJD.
30. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §§ 72, 75-77 (per Lord Rodger), 91 (per Baroness Hale), 127 (per Lord Brown). Lord Carswell agreed with Lord Rodger and Lord Brown, at §97.
31. Issa, supra note 22, §69.
32. Ibid., §71.
33. Ibid., §§ 72-82.
34. Cf. ibid., §74
35. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §74 (per Lord Rodger).
36. The argument has been forcefully made, in relation to the very similar analysis of the Divisional Court, by R. Wilde, 'The "Legal" Space or "Espace Juridique" of the European Convention on Human Rights: Is It Relevant to Extraterritorial State Action?', 10 European Human Rights Law Review (2005) 115-124.
37. Cf. supra note 18.
38. This approach is reminiscent of the position in the law of state succession under which the 'acquired rights' of the population under human rights treaties bind a successor state: See M.T. Kamminga, 'State Succession in Respect of Human Rights Treaties', 7 European Journal of International Law (1996) 469-484, 472, 482-483
39. A. Zimmermann, Staatennachfolge in völkerrechtliche Verträge (Berlin: Springer, 2000) 572-577.
40. Cf. supra note 19.
41. Al-Skeini (DC), supra note 2, §190.
42. Wilde, supra note 28, at 118-119.
43. Ibid.
44. Al-Skeini (CA), supra note 19, §80 (per Brooke LJ).
45. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §§ 68 (per Lord Rodger), 124, 127, 132 (per Lord Rodger).
46. See also, ibid., §91 (per Baroness Hale).
47. Ibid., §68 (per Lord Rodger).
48. See also ibid., §73, where his Lordship notes that the jurisdiction point had been common ground between the parties in Öcalan v. Turkey, ECHR RJD 2005-IV, 131, 164, and that the Court consequently 'did not have to rule on jurisdiction'.
49. Ibid., §127 (per Lord Brown).
50. See e.g. Seal v. Chief Constable of South Wales Police [2007] UKHL 31, [2007] 1 WLR 1910, §§ 13 (per Lord Bingham), 30 (per Lord Woolf), 51 (per Baroness Hale).
51. See e.g. Rookes v. Barnard (No. 1) [1964] AC 1129, 1173-1174 ( per Lord Reid).
52. See e.g. Grant v. Edwards [1986] Ch 638, 650 (per Nourse LJ).
53. See e.g. Guerra and Others v. Italy. ECHR RJD 1998-1, 210, 223.
54. See Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua, ICJ Reports (1986) 14, at 24. Fundamentally the same rule exists at common law, but as culturally the importance of counsel is diminished, so jura novit curia is stronger in the Strasbourg Court.
55. N. Mole, 'Issa v Turkey: Delineating the Extraterritorial Effect of the European Convention on Human Rights?', 10 European Human Rights Law Review (2005) 86-91, 91.
56. See e.g. Axen v. Germany, Concurring Opinion of Mr Ganshof van der Meersch, ECHR (1983) Series A No. 72, 15
57. Van Orshoven v. Belgium, Concurring Opinion of Judge Mifsud Bonnici, ECHR RJD 1997-III, 1039, 1054.
58. At common law, the doctrine of obiter dicta may also be said to apply for a more conceptual reason: It is the courts' duty to resolve cases; beyond this, they do not have judicial authority, even in the sense of precedent. But this point seems bound up with the common law rule of stare decisis, and hence could not apply at Strasbourg.
59. Cf. on the ICJ M. Shahabuddeen, Precedent in the World Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 159-160.
60. Ullah, supra note 13, §35 (per Lord Steyn).
61. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §78 (per Lord Rodger). Baroness Hale and Lord Carswell agreed, at §§ 90, 97.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Paragraphs 2 of Arts 8-11 ECHR.
65. See e.g. Handyside v. United Kingdom, ECHR (1976) Series A No. 24, 22.
66. What constitutes 'inhuman or degrading treatment' may depend on the vulnerability of the victim (see e.g. Menesheva v. Russia, available online at www.echr.coe.int, §61). There might, accordingly, be reason in some cases to hold that treatment did not reach the level of Art. 3 because the victim was, due to his or her background, less vulnerable than others. But this obviously cannot be true of all members of a whole culture; the assessment must be made on the facts of each individual case.
67. R (Limbuela) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] UKHL 66, [2006] 1 AC 396, §55 (per Lord Hope of Craighead).
68. Cf. Otto-Preminger-Institut v. Austria, ECHR (1994) Series A No. 295-A, 21, where the Court took note of social conditions in the Austrian region of Tyrol as supporting the interference.
69. Cf. Norris v. Ireland, ECHR (1988) Series A No. 142, 20 (no evidence of different material facts compared to ECtHR precedent on the criminality of homosexual conduct in private).
70. R.D. Sloane, 'Outrelativizing Relativism: A Liberal Defense of the Universality of International Human Rights, 34 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law (2001) 527-596, 568.
71. Ibid.
72. Aspects of Sharia law, for instance, may be incompatible with the Convention: See Refah Partisi (The Welfare Party) and Others v. Turkey, ECHR RJD 2003-II, 267, 312.
73. See A.A. An-Na'im, 'Islam and Human Rights: Beyond the Universality Debate', 94 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law (2000) 95-101, 97: Sharia law 'is supposed to regulate [the] daily lives [of believers] as Muslims'.
74. Protection may be required either from private actors, or from the state (Iraq), it being a structural quality of duties to protect that the source of the danger is irrelevant: C. Grabenwarter, Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention (Munich and Vienna: C.H. Beck and Manz, 2005) 139.
75. Such values are, in fact, often invoked in a manipulative, self-serving and cynical manner by the leaders who seek to gain from the absence of human rights: Sloane, supra note 58, at 585-586.
76. K. Hastrup, 'Human Rights: Between Universality and Diversity', Juridical Review (2004) 3-12, at 9-10.
77. Cf. An-Na'im, supra note 61, at 98
78. Sloane, supra note 58, at 584-585.
79. Cf. Sloane, supra note 58, at 583: 'Few today... would resort to cultural relativism to defend cultural practices that sanction slavery, human sacrifice, or genocide.' Torture might be added to the list, as might less easily categorized abuses.
80. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §129 (per Lord Brown). On the later and current situation see M. Sassòli, 'Legislation and Maintenance of Public Order and Civil Life by Occupying Powers', 16 European Journal of International Law (2005) 661-694, 683-684.
81. See on this argument Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory ICJ Reports (2004) 136, at 178
82. 'Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo', 45 International Legal Materials (2006) 271, 317-318 (ICJ)
83. A.M. Gross, 'Human Proportions: Are Human Rights the Emperor's New Clothes of the International Law of Occupation?', 18 European Journal of International Law (2007) 1-35.
84. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §129.
85. Sassòli, supra note 66, at 662.
86. The most common translation of the French 'I'ordre et la vie publics is 'public order and safety', but the last word is misleading. 'Civil life' is a better rendition of the French 'vie publi[que]'. E.H. Schwenk, 'Legislative Power of the Military Occupant under Article 43, Hague Regulations', 54 Yale Law Journal (1944-1945) 393-416, 393, n. 1
87. Sassòli, supra note 66, at 663-664.
88. The argument was previously made by M.J. Dennis, 'Application of Human Rights Treaties Extraterritorially in Times of Armed Conflict and Military Occupation', 99 American Journal of International Law (2005) 119-141, 131-132,
89. and discussed by A. Roberts, 'Transformative Military Occupation: Applying the Laws of War and Human Rights', 100 American Journal of International Law (2006) 580-622, 587-589, 620.
90. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §129.
91. Gross, supra note 67, at 6.
92. Cf. also Roberts, supra note 71, at 582.
93. E. Benvenisti, The International Law of Occupation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004) 5-6
94. Gross, supra note 67, at 18.
95. O. Debbasch, L'occupation militaire: Pouvoirs reconnus aux forces armées hors de leur territoire nationale (Paris: Librairie générate de droit et de la jurisprudence, 1962) 171.
96. A modern, additional rationale vests sovereignty in the local population, by virtue of the principle of self-determination: Gross, supra note 67, at 18, n. 78.
97. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §§ 45, 54.
98. See also supra, Part 2 of this article, and in the present context of Art. 43 of the Hague Regulations Benvenisti,
99. supra note 75, at 20-21.
100. Cf. on the latter point Benvenisti, supra note 75, at 20-21
101. Debbasch, supra note 76, at 68.
102. This obligation is subject to any human rights constraints: Sassòli, supra note 66, at 664-667.
103. Conversely, the ECHR is plainly not opposed to the maintenance of public order; it is, in the famous phrase, 'not a suicide pact': Cf. Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 159-160 (1963).
104. This follows from Art. 43 itself: If the law must not be changed, then the institutions established by it are likewise protected: Sassòli, supra note 66, at 671.
105. In this respect, the ECHR, which directly affects only the UK authorities, may lead indirectly to changes to the local law.
106. Sassòli, supra note 66, at 676
107. cf. Roberts, supra note 71, at 620.
108. See Benvenisti, supra note 75, at 14
109. Schwenk, supra note 70, at 400.
110. Sassòli, supra note 66, at 673, in this regard points to the Brussels Declaration, the precursor of Art. 43.
111. See the explanation supra, in note 70.
112. Sassòli, supra note 66, at 663.
113. Cf. Schwenk, supra note 70, at 400-401.
114. This provision 'may be seen as interpreting the expression "unless absolutely prevented" contained in the Hague Regulations'. Sassòli, supra note 66, at 670
115. see also J. Pictet, The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: Commentary IV (Geneva: ICRC, 1958) 335.
116. Sassòli, supra note 66, at 670.
117. Al-Skeini (DC), supra note 2, §§ 287-288.
118. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §61 (per Lord Rodger)
119. Al-Skeini (CA), supra note 19, §108 (per Brooke LJ).
120. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §132 (per Lord Brown). Baroness Hale and Lord Carswell agreed, at §§ 90, 97.
121. See also Al-Skeini (DC), supra note 2, §287.
122. See e.g. X v. Germany, YB 8, 158
123. W.M. v. Denmark (1992), DR 73, 193.
124. Banković, supra note 19, at 356.
125. Of course, an occupying power has jurisdiction in the occupied territory, but this does not mean that it has 'jurisdiction' in the ECHR sense throughout that territory; nor does this give special status to its military installations. Such status may follow from Status of Forces Agreements, but none existed at the relevant time.
126. See in that sense W.M., supra note 93, at 196.
127. See also, for the proposition that jurisdiction may follow either from 'effective control' over territory, or from control over persons, Al-Skeini (CA), supra note 19, §48 (per Brooke LJ)
128. B. Miltner, 'Extraterritorial Jurisdiction under the European Convention on Human Rights: An Expansion under Isaak v Turkey?', 12 European Human Rights Law Review (2007) 172-182, at 173-175.
129. See Öcalan, supra note 37, at 164,
130. applying the same rule in an abduction case. This reasoning was also employed in the Court of Appeal: Al-Skeini (CA), supra note 19, §108 (per Brooke LJ).
131. Al-Skeini (HL), supra note 1, §108 (per Lord Brown).
132. Al-Skeini (CA), supra note 19, §§ 79-81, 120-124 (per Brooke LJ).
133. It has been reported that they will lodge a complaint with the Court.