The ICJ and other human rights groups submitted an amicus curiae brief to the US Supreme Court in the leading rendition case of Mohamed and Others v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.
The defendant is a private company accused of providing flight services to facilitate the US rendition program involving the unlawful transfer of detainees to situations of arbitrary and secret detention, torture and enforced disappearance.
The brief supports review by the Supreme Court with the view to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals dismissing the case for reasons of state secrecy and addresses the obligations under international human rights law on the right to an effective remedy and reparations for torture, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations.
The brief is also joined by Swiss Senator Dick Marty, former Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe inquiry on Alleged Secret Detentions and Unlawful Inter-State Transfers of Detainees involving Council of Europe Member States, Professor Manfred Nowak (former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (2004-2010)), Professor Robert Goldman (former UN Independent Expert on Terrorism and Human Rights) and Professor Stefan Trechsel, (Judge ad litem at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)). Professor Goldman and Professor Trechsel served on the ICJ’s Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter Terrorism and Human Rights.
USA-amicuscuriae-advocacy-2011 (full text, PDF)