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THE TORTURE EXCEPTION TO IMMUNITY FROM CIVIL SUIT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

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Extract

THE European Court of Human Rights' (ECtHR) judgment in Jones and others v U.K. (2014) 59 E.H.R.R. 1 is the latest word on a long-running debate about whether public international law excludes foreign State immunities before domestic courts in civil proceedings relating to the violation of jus cogens norms, particularly the prohibition against torture. The case joined applications by Mr. Jones and Messrs. Mitchell, Sampson and Walker, all British (or dual) nationals, alleging that the UK's grant of immunity to Saudi Arabia (in Mr. Jones's case) and to Saudi Arabian public officials (in both cases) amounted to a disproportionate interference with their right of access to court under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The ECtHR decided, by six votes to one, that the House of Lords' judgment in Jones vMinistry of Interior Al-Mamlaka Al-Arabyia AS Saudiya (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) [2006] UKHL 26; [2007] 1 A.C. 270) (“Jones [HL]”) was correct in finding that public international law did not recognise a “torture” exception to the general rule of State immunity in civil proceedings and, consequently, did not infringe Article 6 of the ECHR.

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Case and Comment
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2015 

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