Publications

REDRESS alongside various other human rights groups, wrote to the Minister of Defence to express serious concern following recent criticisms made by the British Government against human rights lawyers engaged by the Iraqi Historical Allegations team (IHAT), the body set up to investigate human rights crimes allegedly committed in Iraq. REDRESS states that such criticisms - including comments by the Prime Minister that have called these allegations “spurious” - could be construed as attempted interference into the importance and extremely serious work of what is meant to be an independent investigation. REDRESS has since received a response from the Minister of Defence regarding the issue.

REDRESS, alongside several international civil society organisations, has signed a joint letter to the UN Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission on Crimes against Humanity, in order to seek an opportunity to provide input in the drafting of a possible Convention on Crimes against Humanity. In particular, we call for any draft to include provisions on Universal Jurisdiction; particularly, to oblige states parties to exercise jurisdiction when a person, suspected of responsibility for crimes against humanity, is found on their territory, and to permit States to initiate investigations based on universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity suspects, regardless of where such persons are physically located.    

REDRESS submitted comments to the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) on the key issues which the United Kingdom should address when it provides its 6th Periodic Report to UNCAT in May 2017. The list of issues include concerns over the investigation of war crimes and torture allegedly committed by British soldiers in Iraq; allegations of UK complicity in torture in the context of its counter-terrorism activities; the indefinite or lengthy immigration detention of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and their treatment in detention, and the lack of prosecution of torture suspects who come within the UK’s jurisdiction.  

This submission to the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) identifies the key issues that REDRESS believes the United Kingdom must address when it provides its 6th Periodic Report to UNCAT in May 2017. The concerns include insufficiencies in the investigation of war crimes and torture allegedly committed by British soldiers in Iraq; flawed inquiries by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) into UK complicity in torture in the context of counter-terrorism activities; the indefinite or lengthy immigration detention of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and their treatment in detention, and the lack of prosecution of torture suspects who come within the UK’s jurisdiction.

This submission to the 57th Session of the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) concerns Lithuania’s compliance with its obligations under the Convention against Torture. Since the Committee last examined Lithuania's compliance, new evidence has emerged further identifying the country’s involvement in the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme, and the location of the secret detention centre ‘Violet’. Detention Site Violet was closed in 2006 due to a lack of emergency medical care for detainees, including Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who is represented by REDRESS. It was jointly authored by REDRESS and the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI). 

In this letter, REDRESS and five other human rights organisations urge Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, to extend the Article 52 inquiry into member states' involvement in the CIA programme of secret rendition, detention and interrogation. States were asked to provide further information to the inquiry by the end of September 2015 and the organisations are concerned that this request may now lead to a sudden conclusion of the inquiry despite a lack of accountability for governments' actions. In the letter, they also request the Secretary General to accept information from non-state sources as well as make public the outcomes of the inquiry on member states' progress at conducting effective investigations into this matter. The letter is also signed by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Justice Initiative, the International Commission of Jurists and Human Rights in Practice.

  The Victims’ Rights Working Group – a broad coalition of NGOs and experts informally facilitated by REDRESS –  made these recommendations to the 14th Assembly of States Parties that took place from 18-26 November 2015 in The Hague.  

This report documents the proceedings of an expert conference organised by REDRESS and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) on 8 - 9 September 2015 in Pretoria, South Africa. This conference brought together practitioners, lawyers, prosecutors and civil society actors from a number of African countries to explore methods of strengthening victims’ participation in criminal law proceedings. The discussion was informed by the publication of REDRESS recent report on victim participation in domestic criminal proceedings in a variety of countries worldwide.