Forum: House of Lords, United Kingdom
INTERIGHTS' role: Amicus curiae
Keywords: Liberty and security, life, effective remedy, cruel and inhuman treatment, torture, extra-territorial applicability
On 13 June 2007, the United Kingdom’s House of Lords, the country’s supreme judicial body, delivered an important ruling on the application of the European Convention for Human Rights to the actions of British troops in Iraq in the case of Al-Skeini and Others v the Secretary of State for Defence. The case concerned the deaths of six Iraqi civilians in Basra in 2003. Five of them, Hazim Jum'aa Gatteh Al-Skeini, Muhammad Abdul Ridha Salim, Hannan Mahaibas Sadde Shmailawi, Waleed Sayay Muzban, and Raid Hadi Sabir Al-Musawi were shot dead by British military patrols. The sixth, Baha Mousa, was arrested and died at the hands of British troops in a military base. The families of the six victims had requested the UK courts to overturn the Defence Secretary’s refusal to order an independent inquiry into the killings.
The House of Lords ruled that under the European Convention for Human Rights and the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998
(which effectively incorporates the rights contained in the Convention into British law), the British government is obliged to
conduct an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the circumstances of the death of Baha Mousa. This ruling represents a reaffirmation of the principle that human rights law such as the European Convention can bind states parties even when they act outside their territory. Pursuant to the judgment, British forces can be held accountable for violations of the rights of people detained by them abroad.
However, the Law Lords rejected the proposition that the European Convention similarly applies to the killings of the other five victims. The Law Lords found that there was no sufficient link between the Iraqi victims and the UK because British troops did not have effective control over the area where the killings occurred. In so finding, the Law Lords followed the restrictive and controversial European Court of Human Rights’ decision in the Bankovic case, although they acknowledged that the European Court’s jurisprudence on this issue “does not speak with one voice” thus perhaps foreshadowing a likely complaint to the European Court and further clarification of the law.
INTERIGHTS intervened before the House of Lords together with ten other organizations: the Aire Centre, Amnesty
International, the Association for the Prevention of Torture, the Bar Human Rights Committee, British Irish Rights Watch,
Justice, Kurdish Human Rights Project, the Law Society of England and Wales, Liberty, and the Redress Trust.
INTERIGHTS Contact: Vesselina Vandova, Senior Lawyer, Security and Rule of Law Programme
Related links
BBC News: [27 March 2008] MoD to admit breach on Mousa case
Judgment of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords (full text)
INTERIGHTS amicus curiae brief
Public Interest Lawyers, Brimingham (counsel for appellants)
BBC News: Rights law applies to Mousa case
The Guardian: Human rights law applies in Iraq killing, Lords rule
