Wanted: a new deal for dissidents

The fifth anniversary of Guantánamo and the plight of European residents still there spotlights a long-running injustice under international law.
Four years ago I was legal adviser to the European Parliament on the plight of the European citizens in Guantánamo and we came up against the plight of the many European residents detained there, Britons from the Indian sub- continent and Germans of Turkish origin prominent among them.
We were powerless to do anything because the right to protection in international law is enshrined in the 40-year-old Vienna convention which is based solely on citizenship and pays no regard to territorial and family ties – a “citizenship of choice” concept known to private international law as domicile.
While Guantánamo is a high-profile example, over the years numbers of dissidents, having received asylum status within EU member states have been lured to third countries to meet relatives in the mistaken belief that the member state governments will take responsibility for them.
They are then often detained and kidnapped or handed over to the very government they fled from. Further “citizens” are often dumped on their country of citizenship when their entire lives have been spent in their country of domicile.
There are also some problems with dual citizenship, eg, a number of problem states confer nationality on anyone born of a parent coming from their state unless positive action is taken at the age of majority. Pakistan is one of them. The EU needs to both establish appropriate rights internally and lobby for a revision of the Vienna convention to bring it up to date with reality.

Stephen Jakobi
London