Al-Skeini lecture draws capacity audience
On 18 July 2007, Dr Ralph Wilde of University College London delivered a lecture at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law on 'The Al-Skeini Decision on the Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights: A Landmark?'.
The seminar, organized in collaboration with the Human Rights Lawyers Association, is part of the Institute's seminar series, State Jurisdiction in a Global Environment: Rethinking Extraterritoriality, which is kindly being sponsored by Clifford Chance LLP.
The seminar was chaired by Professor Gillian Triggs, Director of the British Institute; the discussant was Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Chatham House.
Dr Wilde discussed the decision of the House of Lords in the Al-Skeini case relating to the question of extraterritorial application of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 to the actions of British forces operating in Iraq. He focused principally on their Lordships' treatment of the previous jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights relating to extraterritorial applicability of the European Convention and, in particular, the weight granted, on the one hand to the Grand Chamber decision in the Banković case, and on the other to subsequent cases which appear to indicate a more generous approach to extraterritorial applicability.
An expanded version of the paper will be published as a case note in the American Journal of International Law.
Dr Wilde has previously commented on the question of extraterritorial application of human rights treaties and on earlier stages of the Al-Skeini litigation in, inter alia, R Wilde, 'Legal "Black Hole"?: Extraterritorial state action and international treaty law on civil and political rights' (2005) 26 Michigan Journal of International Law 739 - 806 and R Wilde, 'The Extraterritorial Application of the Human Rights Act' in Jane Holder & Colm O'Cinneide (eds.) Current Legal Problems 2005 (2006), 47 - 81.
For further information, please contact: Dr Ralph Wilde, Faculty of Laws, UCL, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, London WC1H 0EG, Tel: +44(0)207 679 1491, ralph.wilde@ucl.ac.uk.
