Europe rights chief finds safeguards against rendition inadequate News
Europe rights chief finds safeguards against rendition inadequate

[JURIST] Council of Europe (COE) Secretary General Terry Davis concluded in a new report [text, DOC] published Wednesday that many European governments do not have adequate administrative, judicial, or parliamentary control mechanisms to ensure that their airspace and aircraft are not being used for illegal rendition programs. As part of an ongoing Council probe into alleged CIA rendition flights [JURIST news archive], Davis detailed information gathered from additional questionnaires submitted by 37 of the 46 COE member states [additional responses, by country]. Answers provided by the 37 nations in response to an initial November 2005 questionnaire and compiled in Davis's March report [text, PDF; JURIST report] were found by Davis to be inadequate.

Davis is conducting the COE's Article 52 [text] investigation into potential member nation violations of the European Convention on Human Rights [text, PDF], and will soon present legal recommendations for reforming the laws of member states to comply with the ECHR. The Article 52 inquiry is a parallel investigation to Dick Marty's COE report [JURIST report], published last Wednesday, that accused 14 European countries of taking an active or passive role in a "global spider's web" of CIA rendition programs and secret CIA prisons [COE materials].