ABSTRACT
States have increasingly been facing the problem of how to deal with foreign terrorism suspects and other persons considered to be a risk to national security who they have not been able to prosecute successfully. Often the evidence against the person is intelligence evidence that cannot be used in criminal proceedings, so that deportation is impossible owing to the risk of torture or ill treatment in the person’s country of origin. To escape this dilemma, states have increasingly relied on receiving diplomatic assurances from states willing to receive terrorist suspects. The legality and effectiveness of this practice, however, is controversial because it engages states’ obligations not to render, transfer, send or return a person where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture (non-refoulement).
