## Facts

- Several individuals alleged they were arrested, detained, and tortured in Saudi Arabia by Saudi officials.
- The claimants sued in England, seeking civil damages for torture and related wrongs.
- Defendants included the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and named Saudi officials alleged to have participated in or been responsible for the torture.
- The defendants invoked state immunity under the State Immunity Act 1978 and sought dismissal for lack of jurisdiction.
- The claimants argued that torture is prohibited by a peremptory norm (jus cogens) and that the Torture Convention and related rules displaced immunity, at least for individual officials.

## Issues

1. Whether a foreign state is immune in UK courts from civil claims alleging torture committed abroad by state agents.
2. Whether individual foreign officials sued for torture committed in an official capacity share the state’s immunity (or a form of official immunity) from civil proceedings.
3. Whether the jus cogens status of the prohibition of torture, or obligations under the Torture Convention, removes or limits state/official immunity in civil litigation.

## Decision

- The House of Lords held that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was immune from the civil claims under the State Immunity Act 1978.
- The House of Lords also held that the individual Saudi officials were immune from suit for acts alleged to have been done in an official capacity.
- The proceedings were therefore barred in the UK courts and were dismissed on immunity grounds.

## Legal Principles

- Under the State Immunity Act 1978, a foreign state is generally immune from the jurisdiction of UK courts, subject only to specified statutory exceptions.
- Allegations of torture committed abroad by state agents do not, without a statutory exception, defeat state immunity in a civil action.
- Official-capacity conduct by foreign officials attracts immunity in UK civil proceedings to the extent that the claim is, in substance, against the foreign state.
- The peremptory status of the prohibition of torture does not, by itself, create a civil jurisdictional exception to state immunity; rules on substantive illegality and rules on immunity operate at different levels.
- International obligations to criminalize and prosecute/extradite torture do not necessarily entail a universal civil damages forum overriding immunity absent clear domestic legislation.

## Conclusion

The House of Lords concluded that UK courts lacked jurisdiction to entertain civil torture claims against Saudi Arabia and its officials for acts alleged to have occurred in Saudi Arabia, because state immunity and related official immunity were not displaced by jus cogens arguments or the Torture Convention in the absence of a statutory exception.


Jones v. Ministry of Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, [2006] UKHL 26 (U.K. 2006)