The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECtHR) has held in Al-Skeini & ors v. UK that the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) governed the UK during its occupation of Iraq. The Court found that the UK took on powers "normally to be exercised by the sovereign", and accordingly had "effective control" over Iraq. The Court ruled that this satisfied the jurisdiction requirement of Article 1 in relation to deaths that occurred while the UK was carrying out its Iraqi security operations. This ruling is hugely significant because it extends the reach of the Convention outside EU territory.
The Court also found that the UK violated Article 2 (right to life) by failing to properly investigate a series of cases involving Iraqis who died during the UK occupation. The Court said that Article 2 required the UK to take affirmative steps to investigate alleged wrongful deaths involving their military. In the Court's view, the investigation conducted in these cases was not sufficiently independent from the UK military, as it did not use independent investigators or make adequate effort to identify local Iraqi witnesses.
Click here to see the press release by Public Interest Lawyers, who represented the Applicants.
Click here to see the press release by Interights, who was a third party intervener.
In Al-Skeini's companion case Al-Jedda v. UK the Court found that the UK violated Article 5 (right to liberty) when it detained the Claimant indefinitely. The UK had argued that a UN resolution authorizing its government to take "all necessary measures to contribute to the security and stability in Iraq" took precedence over Article 5. The Court disagreed, finding that the UN resolution did not conflict with the Convention because it did not require the UK to detain people indefinitely. Both rules could be enforced.