UN TREATY BODIES
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was ill-treated by foreign agents immediately preceding his expulsion, while
still on Swedish territory. The Committee found that this ill-treatment had
taken place with the acquiescence of the Swedish police. However, even without the ill-treatment, the State party had enough information at its disposal
at the time of removal to draw the “natural conclusion” that the complainant
was at a real risk of torture. Moreover, “The procurement of diplomatic assurances, which… provided no mechanism for their enforcement, did not suffice to
protect against this manifest risk.”248 Thus, while diplomatic assurances may not
be inherently incompatible with a State’s obligations under Article 3 UNCAT,
they must include provisions for both enforcement and rigorous monitoring.
The CAT expanded on these requirements in Pelit v Azerbaijan, noting that
seeking diplomatic assurances is itself “an acknowledgment that, without more,
expulsion of the complainant would raise issues of her mistreatment.”249 Furthermore, the post-expulsion monitoring undertaken by the returning State must
be, both objectively and in the complainant’s perception, “objective, impartial
and sufficiently trustworthy.”250
– ICCPR
As discussed above, in the context of the right to life, the HRC has held that
States which have abolished the death penalty may not extradite individuals
to other countries where they may face this sentence. Nonetheless, the Committee allowed an exception; where the receiving State gives assurances that
the death penalty will not be imposed, extradition will not automatically violate Article 6.251 The attitude of the HRC to Article 7 has, however, been more
restrictive, particularly in the light of ‘extraordinary renditions’ and the ‘war
on terror.’
In its Concluding Observations on the USA in 2006, the Committee warned
that “The State party should exercise the utmost care in the use of diplomatic assurances and adopt clear and transparent procedures with adequate judicial mechanisms for review before individuals are deported, as well as effective mechanisms
to monitor scrupulously and vigorously the fate of the affected individuals.”252
Ibid. §13.4. In its decision, the Committee did not explicitly name this case as involving socalled ‘extraordinary rendition,’ in which persons suspected to pose a national security threat
are taken to States where they will be tortured in order to provide information for the security
services of a third State. Such practices are clearly prohibited under the UNCAT.
249
Pelit v Azerbaijan, CAT Communication No. 281/2005, 1 May 2007, §11.
250
Ibid.
251
Judge v Canada (2002), op. cit., §10.4.
252
HRC, Concluding Observations on the USA, UN Doc. CCPR/C/USA/CO/3, 2006, §16.
248
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