Clapham. While Professor Gaeta’s contributions largely address the extent to which States may choose to exceed the scope of article 1 UNCAT, Professor Clapham in the following passage is clearly addressing the scope of article 1. “But I would go further than you - one does not even need the involvement of a state official under the Convention. The Convention uses the expression ‘official capacity’ in contrast to ‘state official’. As you know, in the Zardad case in the UK this was interpreted to cover a person working against the state as part of a rebellion. One could not say that the state acquiesced in the torture, and yet the defendant was convicted and sentenced to 20 years. The judge said that in Afghanistan there may be ‘different types of structure’ which may ‘come within the ambit of an authority which wields power sufficient to constitute an official body’. It seems to me that one can have torture by an authority even where that ‘authority’ is fighting against the state. I admit that this is just one case. But as we know it is more likely that prosecutions will be brought for international crimes against non-state actors than against state actors. I have not found many national prosecutions for torture by state actors.” (at p 292, footnotes omitted) 74. The only unequivocal academic statement of the contrary view to which we were referred was that of Professor Roger O’Keefe, International Criminal Law, OUP, 2015, Ch 7. Having referred to the decision of the CAT in Elmi he continued: “The committee stressed in the later HMHI v Australia, in which it distinguished Elmi on the facts, that its finding in Elmi as to ‘groups exercising quasi-governmental authority’ was restricted to ‘the exceptional circumstances of state authority that was wholly lacking’. But notwithstanding what the Committee reiterated was ‘the exceptional situation in Elmi’, the Committee’s view is open to doubt. Even more doubtful is the ruling in the English criminal case of R v Zardad (Faryadi) that, even where there exists a government within a state, the expression ‘a public official or other person acting in an official capacity’ in article 1 of the Torture Convention can extend to ‘people who are acting for an entity which has acquired de facto effective control over an area of a country and is exercising governmental or quasi-governmental functions in that area’.” (at para 7.121, footnotes omitted) Page 37

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