Al-Jedda v Secretary of State for Defence
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | LORD BINGHAM OF CORNHILL,LORD RODGER OF EARLSFERRY,BARONESS HALE OF RICHMOND,LORD CARSWELL,LORD BROWN OF EATON-UNDER-HEYWOOD |
| Judgment Date | 12 December 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] UKHL 58 |
| Date | 12 December 2007 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[2007] UKHL 58
Appellate Committee
Lord Bingham of Cornhill
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
Baroness Hale of Richmond
Lord Carswell
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
HOUSE OF LORDS
Appellants:
Keir Starmer QC
Michael Fordham QC
Vaughan Lowe
Richard Hermer
Felicity Williams
(Instructed by Public Interest Lawyers)
Respondents:
Christopher Greenwood QC
Philip Sales QC
Jonathan Swift
(Instructed by Treasury Solicitor)
Interveners (Liberty and JUSTICE)
James Crawford SC
Shaheed Fatima
(Instructed by Herbert Smith)
My Lords,
Since October 2004 the appellant, who is a national of both this country and Iraq, has been held in custody by British troops at detention facilities in Iraq. He complains that his detention infringes his rights under article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, a Convention right protected by the Human Rights Act 1998, and also founds a good claim in this country under the English common law. These claims were rejected by the Queen's Bench Divisional Court (Moses and Richards JJ: [2005] EWHC 1809 (Admin), HRLR 1355) and also by the Court of Appeal (Brooke, May and Rix LJJ: [2006] EWCA Civ 327, [2007] QB 621. Both courts below delivered lengthy and careful judgments, commensurate with the importance and difficulty of the issues then raised, but a new issue has (by agreement) been raised and argued before the House, as explained below.
The appellant has not been charged with any offence, and no charge or trial is in prospect. He was arrested and has since been detained on the ground that his internment is necessary for imperative reasons of security in Iraq. He was suspected of being a member of a terrorist group involved in weapons smuggling and explosive attacks in Iraq. He was believed by the British authorities to have been personally responsible for recruiting terrorists outside Iraq with a view to the commission of atrocities there; for facilitating the travel into Iraq of an identified terrorist explosives expert; for conspiring with that explosives expert to conduct attacks with improvised explosive devices against coalition forces in the areas around Fallujah and Baghdad; and for conspiring with the explosives expert and members of an Islamist terrorist cell in the Gulf to smuggle high tech detonation equipment into Iraq for use in attacks against coalition forces. These allegations are roundly denied by the appellant, and they have not been tested in any proceedings. Nor is their correctness an issue in these proceedings. The House must therefore resolve the legal issues falling for decision on the assumption that the allegations are true, without forming any judgment whether they are or not.
In the courts below the appellant's Human Rights Act argument was directed to a single question, turning essentially on the relationship between article 5(1) of the European Convention on the one hand and the United Nations Charter, and certain resolutions of the UN Security Council, on the other. More specifically, this question is agreed to be whether the provisions of article 5(1) of the Convention are qualified by the legal regime established pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution ("UNSCR") 1546 (and subsequent resolutions) by reason of the operation of articles 25 and 103 of the UN Charter, such that the detention of the appellant has not been in violation of article 5(1). This is the issue which the courts below decided against the appellant, and it remains an issue dividing the parties. But it is now the second issue. For the Secretary of State, prompted (it seems) by the admissibility decision of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Behrami v France, Saramati v France, Germany and Norway (Application Nos 71412/01 and 78166/01 ( unreported), 2 May 2007) has raised an entirely new issue, not ventilated in the courts below, directed to the attributability in international law of the conduct of which the appellant complains. As agreed, the issue is "whether, by reason of the provisions of UNSCR 1511 (2003) and/or UNSCR 1546 (2004), and/or UNSCR 1637 (2005) and/or UNSCR 1723 (2006) and/or (so far as it may be relevant) UNSCR 1483 (2003), the detention of the appellant is attributable to the United Nations and thus outside the scope of the ECHR". The Secretary of State, relying strongly on Behrami and Saramati, contends that the appellant's detention is attributable to the UN, a contention which (if correct) defeats his claim under article 5. This has been treated as the first issue in this appeal.
What is now the third issue can be more simply expressed: whether English common law or Iraqi law applies to the appellant's detention and, if the former, whether there is any legal basis for his detention. The appellant would wish to contend that he has a good claim even if Iraqi law is applicable, but this question was not litigated below, was not agreed as an issue, has not been the subject of expert evidence of Iraqi law and has not been considered by the House.
The first issue
It was common ground between the parties that the governing principle is that expressed by the International Law Commission in article 5 of its draft articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (adopted in May 2004 and cited by the European Court in Behrami and Saramati, para 30):
"Conduct of organs or agents placed at the disposal of an international organization by a state or another international organization
The conduct of an organ of a state or an organ or agent of an international organization that is placed at the disposal of another international organization shall be considered under international law an act of the latter organization if the organization exercises effective control over that conduct."
The European Court also quoted (para 31) from paras 1 and 6-7 of the ILC's authoritative commentary on this article (General Assembly Official Records 59 th Session, Supp No 10 (A/59/10)):
"1. When an organ of a state is placed at the disposal of an international organization, the organ may be fully seconded to that organization. In this case the organ's conduct would clearly be attributable only to the receiving organization…Article 5 deals with the different situation in which the lent organ or agent still acts to a certain extent as organ of the lending state or as organ or agent of the lending organization. This occurs for instance in the case of military contingents that a state placed at the disposal of the [UN] for a peacekeeping operation, since the state retains disciplinary powers and criminal jurisdiction over the members of the national contingent. In this situation the problem arises whether a specific conduct of the lent organ or agent has to be attributed to the receiving organization or to the lending state or organization …
6. Practice relating to peacekeeping forces is particularly significant in the present context because of the control that the contributing state retains over disciplinary matters and criminal affairs. This may have consequences with regard to attribution of conduct …
Attribution of conduct to the contributing state is clearly linked with the retention of some powers by that state over its national contingent and thus on the control that the state possesses in the relevant respect.
7. As has been held by several scholars, when an organ or agent is placed at the disposal of an international organization, the decisive question in relation to attribution of a given conduct appears to be who has effective control over the conduct in question."
Invited by the ILC to comment on the attribution of the conduct of peacekeeping forces to the UN or to contributing states, the UN Secretariat responded (A/CN.4/545, 25 June 2004, pp 17-18):
"The question of attribution of the conduct of a peacekeeping force to the United Nations or to contributing states is determined by the legal status of the force, the agreements between the United Nations and contributing states and their opposability to third states.
A United Nations peacekeeping force established by the Security Council or the General Assembly is a subsidiary organ of the United Nations. Members of the military personnel placed by member states under United Nations command although remaining in their national service are, for the duration of their assignment to the force, considered international personnel under the authority of the United Nations and subject to the instructions of the force commander. The functions of the force are exclusively international and members of the force are bound to discharge their functions with the interest of the United Nations only in view. The peacekeeping operation as a whole is subject to the executive direction and control of the Secretary-General, under the overall direction of the Security Council or the General Assembly as the case may be.
As a subsidiary organ of the United Nations, an act of a peacekeeping force is, in principle, imputable to the Organization, and if committed in violation of an international obligation entails the international responsibility of the Organization and its liability in compensation. The fact that any such act may have been performed by members of a national military contingent forming part of the peacekeeping operation does not affect the international responsibility of the United Nations vis-à-vis third states or individuals.
Agreements concluded between the United Nations and states contributing troops to the Organization contain a standard clause on third-party liability delineating the respective responsibilities of the Organization and contributing states for loss, damage, injury or...
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