Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter summarises the main conclusions of the book regarding the extent to which international human rights bodies, and in particular, the ECtHRts in interpreting the ECHR, have helped to address outstanding challenges in holding European States accountable for complicity in the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Programme. Positive developments highlighted include the evolution of a right to the truth on the part of victims of extraordinary rendition; and the development of an imputational, risk-based principle of State responsibility, applicable not only to direct forms of complicity but potentially also to more indirect forms. These positive trends are unfortunately undermined by the tendency of human rights bodies to admit the relevance of diplomatic assurances in evaluating the existence of a substantial risk of torture or ill-treatment. Overall, however, the quest for legal accountability in cases concerning complicity in extraordinary rendition has been successful not only in securing concrete outcomes for victims, but in increasing our understanding of complicity as a matter of international human rights law and in securing political accountability for complicit States more broadly.