A/HRC/41/36 has formal agreements or liaison relationships; and (c) there is no reasonable way to warn the intended victim. 58. Although Directive 191 stipulates that issues concerning whether threat information meets the duty to warn threshold “should be resolved in favor of informing the intended victim”, there is no way of knowing whether this is faithfully implemented, in the absence of public reporting on the implementation of the duty to warn, in the United States or elsewhere. 59. Anecdotal evidence indicates that intelligence agencies do warn individuals against imminent risks to their life, although they do not report or comment publicly on this role. For instance, in 2018, Hasan Cücük, a Turkish reporter, who had been in Denmark since the 1990s, was reportedly rushed to a safe place by the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste) after a serious threat to his life was detected. 43 In 2018, a number of European security agencies took action to protect Iranian dissidents residing on their territories against credible threats to their life. 44 In May 2019, Norwegian security authorities took action to protect a dissident living on their territory against credible threats from Saudi Arabia.45 E. Implementation of the duty to warn extraterritorially 60. Directive 191 suggests that the duty to warn may be implemented outside the territory of the United States. Paragraph 9 (f) of Directive 191 stipulates that “if the intended victim is located in the U.S. and its territories, IC [intelligence community] elements shall consult with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine how best to communicate threat information to the intended victim”. It can only be inferred from this provision (and from the mandate and operations of the Central Intelligence Agency) that the duty to warn of the Central Intelligence Agency extends both to United States and to nonUnited States persons located inside and outside the territories of the United States. 46 61. Implementation of the duty to protect extraterritorially raises complex legal and operational questions. This section of the present report focuses on the duty to protect and warn extraterritorially against threats by other States. 62. First, as highlighted by Yuval Shany in 2013, whether States can take on the obligation to protect and warn will depend on the context; there is “no one-size-fits-all approach”.47 One key contextual consideration is the nature and extent of the extraterritorial activities of the State, such as its intelligence activities. The Special Rapporteur will not comment on generic and most specific aspects of surveillance carried out by a State, except for calling for surveillance to be carried out in accordance with human rights law. 48 She emphasizes, though, that if a State is engaged in such activities directed at specific countries, and comes across information indicating that individuals may be at risk of human rights violations, including violations of the right to life, then it has the obligation to assess the nature and imminence of the risks and threats and to determine how it may protect those whose lives may be at risk. 63. Secondly, while the assessment of those threats and risks may follow similar approaches to such an assessment at the national level, the responses will have to be adjusted to the context. The measures at the disposal of security agencies operating 43 44 45 46 47 48 See https://observatoryihr.org/priority_posts/erdogans-thugs-plot-to-kill-turkish-journalist-indenmark/. Efforts by the Special Rapporteur to obtain confirmation of the alleged incident elicited “No comment” from the Danish authorities. In January 2019, the Government of the Netherlands alleged that Iranian authorities were behind the murder of two citizens of the Netherlands on its territory. The allegations, which were based on credible evidence, led the European Union to adopt a range of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. See www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions/iran/. Personal communication. CCPR/C/USA/CO/4, para. 4. Shany, “Taking universality seriously”, p. 22. See, for example, A/HRC/40/63. 13