## Facts

- Ely Ould Dah, a Mauritanian army intelligence officer, was alleged to have tortured detained servicemen during ethnic and political violence in Mauritania between November 1990 and March 1991.
- Mauritania enacted a 1993 amnesty covering offences committed by armed and security forces connected to violence between 1989 and 1992; no domestic proceedings were brought against him for the alleged abuses.
- In 1998, Ould Dah traveled to France for military training.
- In 1999, human-rights organizations filed a criminal complaint in France alleging torture in Mauritania in 1990–1991, invoking France’s obligations under the UN Convention against Torture (CAT), in force for France since 1987.
- French authorities arrested Ould Dah in 1999, opened an investigation, and charged him with torture/acts of barbarity; he was detained pretrial and later released on bail.
- He absconded; an arrest warrant issued in 2000.
- Based on multiple witness statements, French courts committed him for trial and ultimately convicted him in absentia in 2005, sentencing him to ten years’ imprisonment, relying on CAT-based universal jurisdiction.
- Ould Dah applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2003, chiefly alleging a violation of Article 7 (no punishment without law).

## Issues

1. Whether France’s prosecution and conviction of a Mauritanian officer for torture committed in Mauritania in 1990–1991, using CAT-based universal jurisdiction, violated Article 7 due to lack of foreseeability and alleged retroactivity.
2. Whether Article 7 required France to give effect to Mauritania’s 1993 amnesty as a bar to prosecution in France.

## Decision

- The ECtHR (Fifth Section) declared the application inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded.
- The Court held that applying French criminal jurisdiction based on CAT obligations was sufficiently foreseeable for Article 7 purposes.
- The Court found Mauritania’s amnesty did not prevent France from prosecuting; treating such amnesties as binding on other States would defeat CAT’s object and purpose.
- The Court emphasized the prohibition of torture as a norm of jus cogens and distinguished civil immunity contexts because the case concerned individual criminal responsibility.

## Legal Principles

- Article 7 is not violated where (i) the conduct (torture) was clearly criminalized under international law at the time, and (ii) the forum State’s exercise of jurisdiction is grounded in pre-existing treaty obligations requiring prosecution or extradition of alleged torturers found on its territory.
- The jus cogens status of the torture prohibition supports a strong duty to combat impunity and limits the weight given to domestic amnesties that shield alleged torturers from accountability.
- A foreign amnesty does not, by itself, create a legally protected expectation under Article 7 that prosecution will be barred in other States exercising universal jurisdiction under CAT.
- Civil-procedure immunities for foreign States or officials do not control where the question is an individual’s criminal liability for torture.

## Conclusion

The ECtHR rejected the Article 7 challenge as manifestly ill-founded, concluding that France’s CAT-based universal-jurisdiction prosecution for torture committed abroad was foreseeable and that a foreign amnesty could not block criminal accountability for torture in France.


Ould Dah v. France, App. No. 13113/03 (Eur. Ct. H.R. Mar. 17, 2009)