Campaign Factsheet: 'Diplomatic assurances' - No protection against torture or ill-treatment

Index Number: ACT 40/021/2005
Date Published: 1 December 2005

Amnesty International opposes the use of diplomatic assurances when they are used to circumvent states' international legal obligations. AI believes that such arrangements cannot be trusted and that reliance on them when seeking to expel people to countries where they risk torture or other ill-treatment violates states' obligations under international law. In the context of the "war on terror", diplomatic assurances are used as a basis for sending certain individuals to countries where the sending government acknowledges that it would otherwise be prohibited from sending them because they would risk torture or other ill-treatment.