Seeking Remedies for Torture Victims: A Handbook on the Individual Complaints Procedures of the UN Tready Bodies A State party is clearly obliged to respect and ensure the treaty rights of those within its sovereign territory. The State party’s obligations also extend to territory or acts over which it has effective control. The State party has to respect the rights of all individuals within “the power or effective control of that State party, even if not situated within the territory of the State party”.97 The CAT Committee consolidated and clarified the extent of the term “jurisdiction” in its General Comment No. 2, stating that: Article 2, paragraph 1, requires that each State Party shall take effective measures to prevent acts of torture not only in its sovereign territory but also ‘in any territory under its jurisdiction’. The Committee has recognized that ‘any territory’ includes all areas where the State Party exercises, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, de jure or de facto effective control, in accordance with international law.98 And adding that: The reference to ‘any territory’ in Article 2, like that in Articles 5, 11, 12, 13, and 16, refers to prohibited acts committed not only on-board a ship or aircraft registered by a State party, but also during military occupation or peacekeeping operations and in such places as embassies, military bases, detention facilities, or other areas over which a State exercises factual or effective control.99 For example, Israel not only has an obligation to those within Israel, under the UN human rights treaties that it has ratified, but also to those within the Occupied Territories in the West Bank and Gaza.100 The CAT Committee emphasized this rule in Concluding Observations on the US in 2006.101 Therefore, for example, the US is responsible for any acts of torture which occur in its detention facility in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, as well as other detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.102 The CAT Committee added that “intelligence activities, notwithstanding their author, nature or location, are acts of the State party, fully engaging its international responsibility”.103 The HRC has also held that: [The State party is responsible for] those within the power or effective control of the forces of a State Party acting outside its territory, regardless of the circumstances in which such power or effective control was obtained, such as forces constituting 97 98 99 100 101 HRC, General Comment No. 31, para. 10. CAT Committee, General Comment No. 2, para. 16. Ibid. Concluding Observations on Israel, (2003) UN Doc. CCPR/CO/78/ISR, para. 11. Concluding Observations on the US, (2006) UN Doc. CAT/C/USA/CO/2, para. 15. See also the HRC’s Concluding Observations on the US, (2006) UN Doc. CCPR/C/USA/CO/3, para. 10. 102 See, on Guantanamo Bay, Concluding Observations on the US, (2006) UN Doc. CAT/C/USA/CO/2, para. 22. See also Concluding Observations on the UK, (2004) UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/33/3, paras. 3–5. 103 Concluding Observations on the US, (2006) UN Doc. CAT/C/USA/CO/2, para. 17 (emphasis added). 56