36 HASSAN v. THE UNITED KINGDOM – JUDGMENT second element was the fact that the deaths occurred during the course of security operations carried out by British forces pursuant to that assumption of authority and responsibility. In the absence of either of these factors, there would have been no jurisdictional link. In particular, the Court did not find jurisdiction on the basis of the “effective control of an area” doctrine and referred expressly to the findings of the Court of Appeal in the domestic Al-Skeini proceedings, that it would have been “utterly unreal” to suggest that in May 2003 the United Kingdom was in effective control and was obliged to secure to everyone in Basrah the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention. On 23 April 2003, when the applicant’s brother was arrested, the United Kingdom had not yet assumed responsibility for security operations in South East Iraq; this did not take place until 1 May 2003. 71. The Government acknowledged that the Court had held that one situation where there might be jurisdiction under Article 1 was where the Contracting State’s agents operating outside its territory exercised “total and exclusive control” or “full and exclusive control” over an individual, for example where an individual was in the custody of the Contracting State’s agents abroad. However, they submitted that this basis of jurisdiction did not apply in the active hostilities phase of an international armed conflict, where the agents of the Contracting State in question were operating in territory of which they were not the occupying power. In such a case, the conduct of the Contracting State would, instead, be subject to all the requirements of international humanitarian law. Thus, anything occurring before 1 May 2003, including Tarek Hassan’s capture, transfer to United States custody in Camp Bucca and questioning by British forces on 25 April 2003, was not within the United Kingdom’s jurisdiction for the purposes of Article 1 of the Convention. 72. In addition, the Government contended that Tarek Hassan did not fall within United Kingdom jurisdiction following his admission to Camp Bucca on the separate ground that, at that time, he was transferred to the custody of the United States and ceased to be exclusively, or even primarily, under United Kingdom control. According to the Government, the Court’s case-law required that a Contracting State’s agents operating outside its territory exercise “total and exclusive control” or “full and exclusive control” over an individual in order for jurisdiction to be established; bipartite or joint control was not sufficient to establish jurisdiction for the purposes of Article 1. These conclusions were not affected by the fact that under paragraph 4 of the MOA (see paragraph 16 above) the United Kingdom could have requested the return of Tarek Hassan to its custody from the United States. There was no evidence that the United Kingdom had ever made such a request. Moreover, the fact that provision for making such a request was included in the MOA provided the clearest indication that, for as long as the person concerned remained under United States custody and

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