CDL-AD(2006)009
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recognized positive obligations which flow from the prohibition of torture and inhuman
treatment, the right to life, and the right to freedom and security. Such positive obligations
include duties to investigate, especially in the case of disappeared persons, and to provide for
effective remedies.
c. Limitations on the competence to transfer prisoners imposed by human rights
obligations
67. The international condemnation of torture has a clear impact on extradition and deportation.
Article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture prevents States Parties from “expelling,
returning (“refouler”) or extraditing a person to another State where there are substantial
grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture”34.
68. The ECHR does not guarantee a right not to be extradited or deported. Nor is there a right to
political asylum. Extradition and deportation are not per se in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR.
Nonetheless, extradition or deportation may run counter to provisions of the ECHR. According
to the Soering doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights, a State may be held responsible
for a violation of Articles 2 and 3, in flagrant cases also of possible violations of Articles 5 and 6
ECHR, if its decision, permission or other action has created a real risk of a violation of these
rights by the State to which the prisoner is to be transferred.35 It is of no relevance in such case
whether the State on whose territory the violation will or could ultimately take place is also
bound by the ECHR36.
69. Under what circumstances a State may be deemed to have known about a “real risk of a
violation” is to be determined in each separate case. Indeed, the establishment of the
responsibility of a State in respect of an extradition or deportation inevitably involves an
assessment of conditions in the requesting or receiving country against the standards of Article 3
ECHR. Nonetheless, the responsibility of the requesting or receiving country, whether under
general international law, under the ECHR or otherwise, is not decisive for the liability of the
extraditing State under the ECHR. Such liability may have been incurred by the latter member
State by reason of its having taken action which has as a direct consequence the exposure of an
individual to ill-treatment prohibited by Article 3 ECHR37.
70. In the Agiza case, the UN Committee against Torture found a violation of article 3, as
Sweden, at the time of the complainant’s removal to Egypt, knew or should have known that
34
See Also Article 33 (Prohibition of expulsion or return (“refoulement”)) of the 1951 UN Convention
relating to the Status of Refugees. In 1990, the United Nations General Assembly sought to ensure that human rights
would receive full respect in the extradition process when it gave approval to the UN Model Treaty on Extradition
which excludes extradition not only if there are substantial grounds for believing that the person will be prosecuted
or punished in the requesting State on account of his race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, political opinion, sex or
status, or subjected to torture or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, but also “if that person has not
received or would not receive the minimum guarantees in criminal proceedings as contained in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”.
35
European Court of Human Rights, Soering v. the United Kingdom judgment of 7 July 1989; Chahal v.
United Kingdom judgment, of 15 November 1996, § 80.
36
Soering judgment, § 86.
37
Soering judgment, §§ 89-91.
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