Joint Blog Series on International Law and Armed Conflict: Better Safe Than Sorry: Transferring Detainees Safely to Coalition Partners

The third post in our joint series hosted by the ICRC Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog, EJIL Talk! and Lawfare, and arising out of the 6th Transatlantic Workshop on International Law and Armed Conflict, “Better Safe Than Sorry: Transferring Detainees Safely to Coalition Partners” by Tilman Rodenhäuser (ICRC) is available now over on Lawfare.

Here’s a taster of Tilman’s post:

Faithful application of the principle of non-refoulement can mean that it is not possible to lawfully transfer a person to another authority—for instance when the recipient authority is notorious for torturing or otherwise ill-treating detainees, or for executing them without fair trial. Practically, this means that the international forces are stuck with the detainee during extraterritorial operations. Short-term solutions in such situations include keeping a detainee in accordance with applicable procedural safeguards, finding an alternative authority to which transfers are lawful, or releasing the detainee. For longer-term solutions, states should work more systematically with partners to ensure humane treatment of detainees, including through assisting in developing necessary rules and procedures, training partner forces, or jointly managing certain detention facilities.

In light of the various legal and operational challenges that extraterritorial detention may entail, it could seem tempting to avoid taking prisoners at all, for instance by conducting “partnered operations” in which only local partners take detainees.

Read the rest of Tilman’s post over on Lawfare.

Other posts in the series:

• Precautionary Measures in Urban Warfare: A Commander’s Obligation to Obtain Information-  Jonathan Horowitz (Senior Legal Officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative)- Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog.
• Sieges, Evacuations and Urban Warfare: Thoughts from the Transatlantic Workshop on International Law and Armed Conflict, Laurie Blank (Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law and Director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law) – EJIL Talk!
• Better Safe than Sorry: Transferring Detainees Safely to Coalition Partners, Tilman Rodenhauser (Legal Advisor, ICRC) – Lawfare
• Medical Care in Armed Conflict, Marco Sassoli (Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva) – Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog
• And more….!

For past Transatlantic Workshop Series

• The 2017 Series
• The 2016 Series
• The 2015 Series
• The 2014 Series