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Hassan v. The United Kingdom (Eur. Ct. H.R.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Elizabeth Stubbins Bates
Elizabeth Stubbins Bates*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Amnesty International
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Extract

On September 16, 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) gave its judgment in the case of Hassan v. United Kingdom.This is the Court’s first explicit engagement with the co-applicability of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in relation to detention in international armed conflicts. The judgment is significant for its rejection of the government’s argument that international humanitarian law operates as lex specialis to displace international human rights law entirely during the “active hostilities phase of an international armed conflict.” It is also noteworthy for the majority’s ruling that provisions on detention of prisoners of war and the internment of protected persons in the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949 could be read into Article 5 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights (the European Convention), creating a new ground for detention under Article 5(1) in international armed conflicts and modifying the procedural guarantees in Article 5(4).

Type
International Legal Materials
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 83 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2015

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References

* This text was reproduced and reformatted from the text available at the European Court of Human Rights website (visited January 7, 2015), http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-146501.

1 Hassan v. United Kingdom, 2014 Eur. Ct. H.R., available at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-146501.

2 Id. ¶ 71.

3 Al-Skeini & Others v. Sec’y of State for Def., [2005] UKHL 26, [2007], available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldjudgmt/jd070613/skeini-1.htm.

4 Hassan v. United Kingdom, supra note 1, ¶ 53.

5 Id. ¶ 54.

6 Id. ¶ 56.

7 Id. ¶ 57.

8 Id. ¶ 63.

9 Id. ¶ 64.

10 Id. ¶ 76.

11 Id. ¶ 75.

12 Id. ¶¶ 71, 75–76.

13 Id. ¶ 77.

14 Id. ¶ 78.

15 Id.

16 Id. ¶¶ 79–80.

17 Id. ¶ 97.

18 Id.

19 Id. ¶¶ 98–99.

20 Id. ¶ 101.

21 Al-Jedda v. United Kingdom, App. No. 27021/08, 2011 Eur. Ct. H.R., available at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-105612.

22 Cyprus v. Turkey, App. No. 6780/74 and 6950/75, Eur. Comm’n H.R. Dec. & Rep. 125–138 (1976).

23 Hassan v. United Kingdom, supra note 1, ¶ 101. Article 31(3)(b) of the Vienna Convention states that in interpreting a treaty, “[t]here shall be taken into account, together with the context . . . [a]ny subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation.” Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, art. 31(3)(b), May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (1969) [hereinafter Vienna Convention].

24 Hassan v. United Kingdom, supra note 1, ¶ 101.

25 Id. ¶ 102. Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention states that “[t]here shall be taken into account, together with the context . . . [a]ny relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties.” Vienna Convention, supra note 23, art. 31(3)(c).

26 Hassan v. United Kingdom, supra note 1, ¶¶ 103–104.

27 Id. ¶ 104.

28 Id. ¶ 105.

29 Id. ¶ 106.

30 Id. ¶¶ 109–111.

31 Id. ¶ 106.

32 Id. ¶ 6 (partly dissenting opinion of Judges Spano, Nicolaou, Bianku and Kalaydjieva) (emphasis in original).