iv) Paragraphs 9 and 10
12. The guidance value and clarity of paragraphs 9 and 10 of the draft would be enhanced by making them
even more consistent with this Committee’s authoritative guidance in its previous General Comment
No. 2, as well as Concluding Observations, regarding the circumstances in which States parties are
deemed to exercise jurisdiction for Convention purposes. For instance, as this Committee has already
authoritatively held:
“[t]he 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.”12
13. Similarly, the draft’s clarity would be enhanced by expressly stating that non-refoulement obligations
under the Convention apply to all areas over which a State party exercises “effective control”, not only
those controlled “as a governmental authority” and that the State party’s jurisdiction, and thus State
responsibility, is engaged where the State in any manner exercises or engages in conduct, i.e. actions
and/or omission, pursuant to its authority (State agent authority) on the territory of another State. Such
a position has been endorsed by this Committee in General Comment No. 2, the International Court
of Justice,13 the European Court of Human Rights,14 and the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR).15
14. Furthermore, we recommend that the General Comment should address the potential that the term
“another State” in Article 3 may be misunderstood or interpreted narrowly, as requiring that the
prohibition of refoulement be restricted solely to involuntary transfer from one State to the territory of
another. In fact, involuntary transfers in violation of the prohibition of refoulement may also occur –
and in fact have occurred – between different jurisdictions within the territory of one State, a practice
12
CAT, General Comment No. 2, UN Doc. CAT/C/GC/2, 24 Jan. 2008, para. 16, see also para. 7.
Provisional Measures in the case of Georgia v. Russian Federation, 2008, No. 35/2008, where the International Court
of Justice held: “there is no restriction of a general nature in CERD [Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination] relating to its territorial application [….] [T]he Court consequently finds that these provision of CERD
generally appear to apply, like the other provisions of instruments of that nature, to the actions of a State party when
it acts beyond its territory”, ICJ. para. 109 (15 October 2008). The International Court of Justice had of course
previously discussed and affirmed the extraterritorially application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights in other cases, see, e.g., Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
Advisory Opinion, 2004 ICJ. 136, para. 109 (9 July 2004); Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (DRC v.
Uganda), 2005 I.C.J. 26 (19 December 2005).
14
See, inter alia, European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ECtHR), Issa and Others v Turkey, App. no. 31821/96,
30 March 2005; ECtHR, Hirsi Jamaa and Others v Italy, App. no. 27765/09, 23 February 2012.
15
IACHR, Detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Request for Precautionary Measures, MC 259-02, March 13, 2002;
IACHR, Djamel Ameziane v. United States, Report No. 17/12, 20 March, 2012, para. 33; IACHR, Decision of the
Commission as to the admissibility [of Haitians to the United States], Report No. 28/93, 13 October 1993.
13
7
AI Index: IOR 40/6040/2017