A/HRC/43/35
and interrogation.27 Since such actions deliberately circumvent due process safeguards and
are conducted without recourse to the legal procedures used in extraditions, deportations or
expulsions, the European Court of Human Rights has stated that they are anathema to the
rule of law and to the values that international human rights law seeks to protect.28 Other
practices whereby States bypass ordinary legal procedures by detaining or abducting
persons outside their territory and extrajudicially transferring them to face trial elsewhere
have been similarly criticized by the European Court.29 According to the Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention, every case of apprehension and transfer of individuals occurring
outside the confines of any legal procedure and without providing the individual access to
counsel or to any judicial body to contest the transfer amounts to a violation of the
prohibition of arbitrary and unlawful detention. 30 To the extent that an individual is
subsequently detained outside the normal legal framework in the receiving State, the right
to liberty and the prohibition of arbitrary detention are also necessarily violated.31 Indeed,
the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture have expressed concern
that protracted and indefinite extrajudicial detention further entails a violation of the
detainee’s rights to a fair trial, to be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent
dignity of the human person and to the recognition as a person before the law, and a
violation of the prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment.32 When conducted in secrecy,
extraterritorial detention in the context of extraordinary renditions may, in the view of the
European Court, also amount to an enforced disappearance or secret detention, with the
associated violations that these practices entail.33
12.
Additionally, the extraterritorial and extrajudicial nature of such practices is
conducive to coercive interrogations, in many instances amounting to torture and illtreatment.34 Such violations may be perpetrated directly by agents of the rendering State or
of third States to which the person is transferred without any adequate risk assessment
procedure. The Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture have found
that extraordinary rendition is often accompanied by a risk of torture35 and implicates the
principle of non-refoulement. 36 According to this principle, a State detaining persons
extraterritorially may not transfer them to another State where there are substantial grounds
for believing that there is a real risk of irreparable harm, such as being subjected to torture
or ill-treatment,37 that their right to life would be violated38 or that their liberty and security
of person would be violated in a manner amounting to inhuman treatment.39 The principle
also prohibits the transfer of a person to a State when it is foreseen that that State will in
turn transfer the person to a third State where there are substantial grounds for believing
that there is a real risk of irreparable harm.40 In evaluating this risk, States should consider a
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1249&context=faculty_articles;
www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Report-on-Terrorism-Counter-terrorism-and-HumanRights-Eminent-Jurists-Panel-on-Terrorism-series-2009.pdf, p. 80; A/HRC/13/42, para. 36.
European Court of Human Rights, Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland (application No. 7511/13), 24
July 2014, para. 452.
Ibid., Savriddin Dzhurayev v. Russia (application No. 71386/10), 25 April 2013, para. 205.
A/HRC/4/40/Add.1, paras. 13, 17 and 22; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 9
(1) and (4); Silvia Borelli, “Extraordinary rendition, counter-terrorism and international law” in
Research Handbook on International Law and Terrorism, Ben Saul, ed. (Edward Elgar, 2014), pp.
361 and 364.
Borelli, “Extraordinary rendition”, pp. 361 and 364.
Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 35, para. 56; Committee against Torture, general
comment No. 2, para. 13; CCPR/C/USA/CO/4, para. 21; CAT/C/USA/CO/2, para. 22; International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, arts. 7, 10 (1), 14 and 16.
European Court of Human Rights, El-Masri v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
(application No. 39630/09), 13 December 2012, para. 240.
CAT/C/USA/CO/3-5, para. 11.
CAT/C/AZE/CO/3, para. 22.
CAT/C/USA/CO/2, para. 20; Alzery v. Sweden (CCPR/C/88/D/1416/2005), para. 11.5.
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, art. 3
(1); Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31, para. 12.
Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 36, paras. 30–31.
Ibid., general comment No. 35, para. 57.
Ibid., general comment No. 31, para. 12; Committee against Torture, general comment No. 4 (2017)
on the implementation of article 3 in the context of article 22, paras. 9–17.
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