44 HASSAN v. THE UNITED KINGDOM – JUDGMENT 16071/90, 16072/90 and 16073/90, § 191, ECHR 2009; Al-Jedda, cited above, § 105; Al-Skeini, cited above, §§ 164-167). This was, moreover, supported by the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in The Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, § 106 (see paragraph 36 above). In the applicant’s submission, the International Court of Justice was recognising in this passage that there might be some rights that fall within the scope of international humanitarian law but to which no human rights convention extended. In the applicant’s view, the position was that at most, the provisions of international humanitarian law might influence the interpretation of the provisions of the Convention. For example, they might be relevant in determining what acts were strictly required by the exigencies of the situation for the purposes of a derogation from Article 2. In the context of Article 5, this might, in an appropriate case, inform the Court’s interpretation of “competent legal authority” and “offence” in Article 5 § 1(c). However, it was not right that Article 5 was displaced in circumstances in which the Geneva Conventions were engaged. The Convention was a treaty aimed at protecting fundamental rights. Its provisions should not be distorted, still less ignored altogether, to make life easier for States which failed to use the mechanism within the Convention that expressly dictated how they were to reconcile its provisions with the exigencies of war. 84. The applicant further contended that, in any event, the Government had not identified anything that United Kingdom forces were required to do by the Geneva Conventions that would have obliged them to act contrary to Article 5. The Iraq war was a non-international armed conflict following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s forces and the occupation by coalition forces. There was considerably less treaty law applicable to non-international armed conflicts than to international armed conflicts. International humanitarian law stipulated minimum requirements on States in situations of armed conflict but did not provide powers. In reality, the Government’s submission that the Convention should be “displaced” was an attempt to re-argue the question of Article 1 jurisdiction which was decided in Al-Skeini (cited above). If the Government’s position were correct, it would have the effect of wholly depriving victims of a contravention of any effective remedy, since the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions were not justiciable at the instance of an individual. Such a narrowing of the rights of individuals in respect of their treatment by foreign armed forces would be unprincipled and wrong. 85. Finally, even if the Court were to decide that Article 5 should be interpreted in the light of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, Tarek Hassan was arrested and detained as a means of inducing the applicant to surrender. The detention was arbitrary, it did not fall within any

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