Category: International
16 February 2011 by Alasdair Henderson
BA (Demonstrators in Britain – risk on return) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 36 (IAC) – read judgment – and SA (Iranian Arabs-no general risk) Iran CG [2011] UKUT 41(IAC) – read judgment.
The Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) last week allowed two asylum appeals by Iranian political activists, and laid down guidance on the factors the Home Office and immigration tribunals should take into account when deciding asylum applications and appeals based on political activities here in the UK.
In the midst of all the excitement over the events in Tunisia and Egypt, it is important to remember that most countries in the wider Middle East are still under the control of authoritarian regimes which give scant regard to basic human rights. In particular, the success of the recent protests in removing Presidents Ben Ali and Mubarak from office are a reminder of the very similar, but unsuccessful, protests in Iran following the re-election of President Ahmadinejad in June 2009. The Iranian regime brutally suppressed the protesters in 2009, and there has been a crack-down on opposition activists since. The same reaction by the regime has been evident at renewed protests yesterday and today. The Upper Tribunal had to consider the ongoing situation in Iran in two recent decisions.
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28 January 2011 by Isabel McArdle
X v Mid Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau [2011] EWCA Civ 28 – Read judgment
The Court of Appeal has ruled that disabled people are not protected by domestic or European legislation against discrimination when they undertake voluntary work.
In this decision the specific question was whether volunteers at Citizens Advice Bureaus are protected from disability discrimination. X, the anonymised claimant, argued that CAB had terminated her role as a volunteer adviser because she had a disability. She claimed that:
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20 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Terry Jones, an American pastor who threatened to burn Korans on the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, has been banned from entering the UK “for the public good”.
He has told BBC Radio 5 live that he would challenge the “unfair” decision as his visit could have been “beneficial”. But, as I posted last month, the recent case of an Indian preacher who challenged his exclusion from the UK suggests that the courts would be unlikely to quash the Home Secretary’s decision. The following is taken from my previous post on the topic.
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17 January 2011 by Alasdair Henderson
R (Ali Zaki Mousa) v. Secretary of State for Defence [2010] EWHC 3304 (Admin) (21 December 2010) – read judgment
The High Court has dismissed a challenge to the government’s decision to ‘wait and see’ if another public inquiry into abuse of Iraqi detainees is necessary, pending the outcome of internal Ministry of Defence investigations. The court looked in detail at the obligation on states under Article 3 to conduct an independent and effective investigation into allegations of torture, before concluding that what is required by Article 3 essentially depends on the facts of any given case.
The judicial review application was brought on behalf of some 127 Iraqis who claimed that they were tortured and ill-treated by members of the British Armed Forces while being held in detention in Iraq. They demanded that the Secretary of State order an immediate public inquiry, and said that only a public inquiry would effectively investigate both their individual allegations and any wider systemic issues arising out of the individual claims (the background to the claim and a short summary of the permission stage can be found here).
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9 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic US congresswoman, is in a critical condition after being shot at a public meeting in Tucson, Arizona. Six other people died in the shooting, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old child. Eighteen others suffered gunshot wounds.
Little is known as yet about the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, save that he had a troubled past and may have mental health problems. It is also possible that there was a second person involved.
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3 January 2011 by Adam Wagner
Stephen Kinzer, a New York Times journalist and author, has written a scathing article on the efforts of international human rights groups on Guardian.co.uk. The article has generated controversy but in fact keys into a long-standing debate with important implications for the future of the international human rights movement.
The Kinzer article has predictably generated significant debate, with over 300 reader comments so far. Many of the commenters are critical, as is to be expected.
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20 December 2010 by Adam Wagner
Updated | Following the US Senate’s vote to repeal the ban on gay soldiers serving in the US military, it is interesting to compare the situation in the British Army, where gay soldiers have been allowed to serve since 2000.
The UK government was in fact forced to change its policy following a series of court rulings, as the US government might have been if the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy had made it to the Supreme Court, which was looking inevitable before the Senate vote.
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19 December 2010 by Adam Wagner
The long-standing ban on homosexuals serving in the United States military has been struck down by the US Senate. Now the repeal needs to be confirmed by President Obama, who is a long-standing opponent of the ban.
The Senate voted 65 to 31 to approve a repeal of the Clinton-era policy which sought to diminish the ban by not asking soldiers about their sexual orientation, but also requiring them to keep it a secret during their service. It was argued that this policy ultimately led to discrimination which was found to be unconstitutional.
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13 December 2010 by Adam Wagner
Terry Jones, an American pastor who threatened to burn Korans on the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, may be banned from visiting the UK by the home secretary.
Jones, an otherwise unknown local pastor in Gainsville, Florida, cause worldwide controversy earlier this year when he proposed an “International Burn a Koran Day”. He has not as yet carried out his threat.
It is well known that free speech protections mean that we have to protect the rights of those we disagree with. A recent High Court case involving an Indian preacher shows that the protection probably does not extend to non-UK residents such as Jones, but it may to his supporters.
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7 December 2010 by Clare Ciborowska
Tzipi Livni
Updated | A new bill which seeks to reform the powers of the police also seeks to make it harder to issue private arrest warrants for universal jurisdiction offences, such as war crimes, torture and hostage taking,
The controversial change would mean that they can only be issued where there is a reasonable prospect of a successful prosecution (see our previous post).
The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill has now started its passage through Parliament, following its introduction to the House of Commons on 30 November 2010.
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24 November 2010 by Maria Roche
The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Commitee of the United Nations has narrowly voted to remove sexual orientation from a draft resolution against extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
In light of the guarantee of the right to life, liberty and security of person in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the resolution condemns all extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and demands that all States take effective action to prevent, combat, investigate and eliminate such executions.
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17 November 2010 by Alasdair Henderson
As we reported recently, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has ruled that Abu Hamza, the extremist Muslim cleric, cannot be stripped of his British citizenship since this would have the effect of making him stateless.
This is the latest in a string of decisions by various courts in a long-running legal saga surrounding the British government’s attempts to remove Abu Hamza from the UK. Hamza is also facing extradition to the United States, but this has been stayed pending the substantive decision of the European Court of Human Rights as to whether the prospect of serving a life sentence in a ‘supermax’ US prison would breach his Article 3 rights (our analysis of the admissibility decision can be found here).
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3 November 2010 by Richard Mumford
On 1 November 2010 the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill received its third reading in the House of Lords. The bill, which started in the Lords, must now be passed by the Commons before receiving Royal Assent.
The Bill represents the coalition government’s response to the Supreme Court’s decision in HM Treasury v Ahmed (incidentally, the first appeal to have been heard in the Supreme Court) concerning the lawfulness of measures enabling the Treasury to freeze the assets of, amongst others, a person whom it has reasonable grounds for suspecting is or may be a person who facilitates the commission of acts of terrorism.
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1 November 2010 by Matthew Hill
R v M(L) and others [2010] EWCA Crim 2327; [2010] WLR(D) 266 – Read judgment
The Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) has provided further guidance to prosecutors on whether or not they should bring charges against victims of human trafficking who go on to commit crimes. In the same judgment, the Court considered the extent of the obligation on the police to refer such victims to specialist agencies.
The state has a number of duties to victims of human trafficking deriving from the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (CETS No 197).
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7 October 2010 by Adam Wagner
Ghailani
The New York Times reports that those prosecuting Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani in the first civilian trial of a man held at Guantanamo Bay have suffered a setback: “just as the trial was to begin on Wednesday, Judge Kaplan ruled that he would not allow [a man who was to testify that Ghailani sold weapons to him] to testify. … the government had acknowledged that it had identified and located the witness through interrogation of Mr. Ghailani when he was earlier held in a secret overseas jail run by the Central Intelligence Agency. His lawyers have said he was tortured there.” The judge said:
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