UNITED NATIONS, Aug 24: A United Nations human rights expert on Tuesday asked the United Kingdom not to deport anybody under its new anti-terrorism law to a country where there is a risk of torture or ill-treatment, warning that the proposed assurances it would seek were not an adequate guarantee and circumvented its treaty obligations.
“The fact that such assurances are sought shows in itself that the sending country perceives a serious risk of the deportee being subjected to torture or ill-treatment upon arrival in the receiving country,” the UN Commission on Human Rights’s special rapporteur on questions relevant to torture, Manfred Nowak, said in a statement.
He called on governments to refrain from seeking diplomatic assurances and the conclusion of memoranda of understanding to circumvent their international obligation not to deport anybody if there is a serious risk of torture or ill-treatment.
“Diplomatic assurances are not an appropriate tool to eradicate this risk,” he added, citing British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s statement of Aug 5 indicating that the UK would deport persons to their home countries even in cases where these countries have been found to violate the absolute prohibition of torture.
Mr Nowak disputed Mr Blair’s contention that such understandings with receiving countries that deportees would not be tortured or ill-treated constituted a sufficient guarantee to avoid violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
“The Special Rapporteur fears that the plan of the United Kingdom to request diplomatic assurances for the purpose of expelling persons in spite of a risk of torture reflects a tendency in Europe to circumvent the international obligation not to deport anybody if there is a serious risk that he or she might be subjected to torture,” he said.
