All of the texts of diplomatic assurances collected by Human Rights Watch reiterate the receiving country’s existing treaty obligations—ones that they already routinely flout and routinely deny violating—as the basis for illustrating that they can be trusted to comply with non-legally binding diplomatic assurances when it comes to the treatment of the one individual in question.61 For example, in January 2005, a Dutch court ruled that assurances from Turkey “added nothing” to the protection of a former PKK operative threatened with extradition because the guarantees merely restated Turkey’s currently existing human rights obligations, which Turkey had not observed in general with respect to eradicating torture on the ground (see section below on The Netherlands). None of the assurances provide for a mechanism to challenge a breach of the assurances or any other remedy for a credible allegation that the agreement had been broken. Thus, if one or the other of the states involved violates the assurances, it literally has nothing to lose.62 The Tacit Acceptance of Torture Most governments openly admit that they seek diplomatic assurances from states where torture is a serious problem. The phenomenon of one state requesting that another make an exception to its general policy of employing torture with respect to just one individual has deeply disturbing implications. Asking for the creation of such an island of protection comes dangerously close to accepting the ocean of abuse that surrounds it.63 In a December 2004 decision, a U.S. immigration judge eloquently articulated the potential fallout from appearing to sanction torture when he stated: In light of the incontrovertible evidence of record, returning respondent to Yemen at this time where he is likely to be detained and tortured not only would be in abrogation of this country’s commitments under the U.N. Torture Convention, but could also be construed as sanctioning Yemen’s use of torture by its security forces thereby bringing the United States into disrepute in the international community.64 61 See section below containing case summaries. 62 A striking example of a breach of trust allegedly underpinning diplomatic assurances occurred in the European Court of Human Rights case of Shamayev, et al. v. Russia and Georgia. Despite proffering diplomatic assurances directly to the European Court guaranteeing that a court delegation would have access to the Chechen detainees once they were returned to Russia, the Russian authorities subsequently denied the delegation access to the men. See “Empty Promises,” p. 24. 63 Thanks to Yuval Ginbar, legal advisor to Amnesty International, for this observation. 64 In the Matter of Ashraf al-Jailani, Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), U.S. Immigration Court, York, Pennsylvania, File #A 73 369 984, December 17, 2004, p. 14, copy on file with Human Rights Watch. 23 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17 NO. 4(D)