Sir, In your article “Saudi ‘torture’ victims lose their right to sue” (June 15), you quote Mr Jones, one of the alleged victims, as saying that the Government had backed another nation’s right to torture British citizens. That is quite wrong.
The question before the court was whether a British court could sit in judgment on the acts of foreign states. The acknowledged position under international law is that domestic courts may not allow an action against a foreign state unless it is acting as a commercial party. Had the House of Lords decided differently, the UK would have been in breach of international law. The doctrine of state immunity is merely procedural; it does not legitimatise actions of other governments, still less does it give them a right to torture, which is forbidden by international law.
In fact, British citizens have a right not to be tortured. But they do not have, and never had had, a right to sue foreign governments in British courts.
The correct forum for this complaint is an international claim by the British Government, which should exercise its right of diplomatic protection and claim damages from Saudi Arabia for apparently breaching international law on the treatment of aliens.
Protest today should be directed at the Government, not for their action in correctly affirming the principle of sovereign immunity, but for their inaction in failing to take up the claim of these victims of torture at the international level.
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IAN HIGGINS
Candidate, LLM International
Business Law, UCL