Northern Ireland to fulfill the role of “national preventive mechanism” envisioned in the Optional Protocol. At the same time, however, since 2001 the UK has pursued a series of counterterrorism policies that undermine the absolute prohibition on torture and ill-treatment. In order to deport terrorism suspects, the UK government has concluded agreements, called Memoranda of Understanding, with countries with known records for torture containing notorture assurances. It has attempted to change European human rights jurisprudence banning returns to the risk of torture and ill-treatment by introducing a balancing test between the alleged threat to national security posed by an individual and the risk of illtreatment upon return.56 British intelligence services cooperate closely with countries known for widespread use of torture, notably Pakistan, and credible allegations have surfaced over the past few years of collusion or complicity by UK agents in abuse of detainees held abroad. The UK government staunchly defends the use of information that may have been obtained through torture or illtreatment in the name of preventing terrorist attacks and has argued for the right to use torture evidence in legal proceedings, although it claimed not to have done so in practice. In its legal arguments and practices, the UK government has championed a minimalist, and ultimately mistaken interpretation of the Convention against Torture to attempt to escape its obligations. In its last review of the UK, the Committee Against Torture criticized the UK for its “limited acceptance of the applicability of the Convention to the actions of its forces abroad.”57 Intelligence Cooperation Both the Security Service (commonly known as MI5), the agency for domestic intelligence gathering overseen by the Home Secretary, and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, commonly known as MI6), the agency for international intelligence gathering overseen by the Foreign Secretary, engage in counterterrorism cooperation with similar agencies around the world. Cooperation with countries such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan raises serious concerns about the use of torture intelligence. 56 See Human Rights Watch, Not the Way Forward: The UK’s Dangerous Reliance on Diplomatic Assurances, October 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/10/22/not-way-forward-0; Letter to British Foreign Secretary Miliband on Diplomatic Assurances with Ethiopia, September 17, 2009, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/09/17/letter-british-foreign-secretaryethiopian-deportation-cases. 57 Committee Against Torture, Concluding Observations/Comments, United Kingdom, CAT/C/CR/33/3, 10 December 2004, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/CAT.C.CR.33.3.En?OpenDocument (accessed March 10, 2010), para 4(b). 23 Human Rights Watch | June 2010