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Soering -v- The United Kingdom; Kuwait Airways Corporation -v- Iraqi Airways Company and others; Kuwait Airways Corporation -v- Iraqi Airways Company And Others (4 and 5)
| More Cases, More Courts, More Years, More Use |
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| ECHR
07 July 1989 |
Criminal Practice - Human Rights - Immigration | ||
| The applicant was held in prison in the UK, pending extradition to the US to face allegations of murder, for which he faced the risk of the death sentence, which would be unlawful in the UK. If extradited, a representation would be made to the judge at the time of sentencing that the United Kingdom wished that the death penalty should not be imposed but there was no promise that that wish would be respected. The likelihood that he may be detained for a long period on death row, might itself engage article 3. The death penalty itself did not breach the Convention. Nevertheless the likelihood was that after extradition he would be treated in breach of his convention rights. Where the Convention right which it was maintained was infringed was, as here, an absolute right, the degree of scrutiny required of any application was the greater. As to Art 1: 'Article 1... sets a limit, notably territorial, on the reach of the Convention. In particular the engagement undertaken by a Contracting State is confined to 'securing' ('reconnaître' in the French text) the listed rights and freedoms to persons within its own 'jurisdiction'. Further, the Convention does not govern the actions of States not Parties to it, nor does it purport to be a means of requiring the Contracting States to impose Convention standards on other States'. And 'inherent in the whole of the Convention is a search for fair balance between the demands of the general interest of the community and the requirements of the protection of the individual's human rights' |
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| Statute(s) referred to: European Convention on Human Rights 1 3 | |||
| Judgment Links: Bailii ECHR | |||
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| HL
16 May 2002 Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Steyn, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Scott of Foscote |
Damages - International - Torts - Other | ||
| After the invasion of Kuwait, the Iraqi government dissolved Kuwait airlines, and appropriated several airplanes. Four planes were destroyed by Allied bombing, and 6 more were appropriated again by Iran. Held: The decision of the Court of Appeal was affirmed. No claim lay for the four planes destroyed by Allies' action, but the Iraqi airline was responsible for the other six. It was legitimate for an English court to have regard to the content of international law in deciding whether to recognise a foreign law. The Iraqi action was a clear breach of international law. The planes had been converted. That it had been done originally by the Iraqi state was no effective defence. Every person through whose hands goods passed in a series of conversions was himself guilty of conversion. Conversion of goods is so various that a precise definition is nigh impossible. The features of the tort are threefold. First the defendant's conduct was inconsistent with the rights of the owner (or other person entitled to possession). Second, the conduct was deliberate, not accidental. Third, the conduct was so extensive an encroachment on the rights of the owner as to exclude him from use and possession of the goods. The contrast is with lesser acts of interference. (Hoffmann L) 'There is no uniform causal requirement for liability in tort. Instead, there are varying causal requirements, depending upon the basis and purpose of liability. One cannot separate questions of liability from questions of causation…..the question of causation is decided by applying the rules which lay down the causal requirements for that form of liability to the facts of the case.' |
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| Judgment Links: Bailii House of Lords | |||
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