Human Rights Watch v Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office : victim status, extraterritoriality and the search for principled reasoning

Raible, L. (2017) Human Rights Watch v Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office : victim status, extraterritoriality and the search for principled reasoning. Modern Law Review, 80(3), pp. 510-524. (doi: 10.1111/1468-2230.12268)

Abstract

In Human Rights Watch v Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal found that the relevant standard of ‘victim status’ that applies in secret surveillance cases consists in a potential risk of being subjected to surveillance and that the European Convention on Human Rights does not apply to the surveillance of individuals who reside outside of the UK. This note argues that the Tribunal's finding regarding the victim status of the applicants was sound but that the underlying reasoning was not. It concludes that the Tribunal's finding on extraterritoriality is unsatisfactory and that its engagement with the European Court of Human Rights case law on the matter lacked depth. Finally, the note considers the defects of the Human Rights Watch case, and the case law on extraterritoriality more generally, against the backdrop of the place of principled reasoning in human rights adjudication.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: European Convention on Human Rights, Regulation of Investigatory, Powers Act 2000, victim status, extraterritoriality, surveillance, privacy.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Raible, Dr Lea
• Authors: Raible, L.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Journal Name: Modern Law Review
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 0026-7961
• ISSN (Online): 1468-2230
• Published Online: 27 April 2017
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 The Modern Law Review
• First Published: First published in Modern Law Review 80:510-524
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher