Liberia

What has happened

Twenty people were flown to Monrovia on 20 August 2026. Six of them refused to leave the aircraft. They were flown on to Equatorial Guinea instead.

What the people being transferred understood about the destination is written in that refusal, and it is the only account of the arrangement that does not come from a government.

The refusal, and who they were.

The Associated Press reported: “Six people who were deported by the United States to Liberia last week resisted getting off the plane and instead were sent to Equatorial Guinea … The group who refused to get off the plane in Liberia on Thursday include four Cuban men, a Brazilian man, and a Cameroonian woman.”

AP, Dakar dateline, 24 August 2026. The American Prospect reports five rather than six, and dates the flight 19 August. Both stand; publish the conflict.

The flight did not run under the published agreement.

Third Country Deportation Watch reports a separate undisclosed arrangement with Liberia under which the August flight was carried out. That could not be corroborated, but a negative bears on it: a search of every State Department batch of qualifying non-binding instruments published from January 2025 through June 2026 found no Liberia entry at all. That is consistent either with no such instrument existing or with one that was never published.

The arrangement, and what it cost

This agreement is binding, unlike most of the others, and its protection clause is narrower than it looks.

The instrument is in the Treaties and Other International Acts Series, TIAS 25-910, and carries the statutory note that TIAS texts “shall be competent evidence … in all the courts of law.” The operative clause:

“The Government of the Republic of Liberia agrees not to return any person transferred to Liberia by the Government of the United States of America to their home country or country of former habitual residence until a final decision has been made regarding any pending protection claims.”

Read it narrowly, because it will be read narrowly. It protects only while a claim is pending, and the agreement immediately provides that Liberia “shall determine a procedure … to resolve the status of those who may abandon pending claims or fail to seek protection.” It is not a general guarantee against refoulement.

State Department, TIAS 25-910, exchange of notes at Monrovia, entered into force 10 September 2025.

The operating procedures that would say who may be transferred are not public.

The agreement provides that “The operating procedures shall be signed by both Parties before any transfers under the Agreement may begin.” Those procedures contain the actual screening and transfer criteria. They have never been published.

The two governments disagree about money.

Liberia’s Ministry of Information states: “The transfer of persons to Liberia is not a transaction with a quid pro quo. Liberia has not demanded or received any compensation or promise of reward in exchange for its consent.” Al Jazeera and Semafor, sourcing Reuters, report $5 million from the United States for “migration management activities”; Third Country Deportation Watch dates that commitment to December 2025. The agreement text disclaims any funding obligation.

The $5 million figure is consistent across secondary sources; no US disbursement record was located.

What the record says about Liberia itself

Liberia has published almost nothing about the people it received.

Al Jazeera, 22 August 2026: the government “has not disclosed their full nationalities, where they are being housed, the legal documents under which they entered Liberia, or the identity of the international organisation paying for and managing their stay.”

Amnesty International has recorded the pattern the arrangement sits inside.

“after the conclusion of the respective third-country removals agreements, Liberia, Rwanda, and Uganda managed to secure US investments into their health sector under the US government’s America First Global Health Strategy.”

Amnesty International, oral statement to the African Commission, AFR 01/1031/2026, 12 May 2026.

The first days

Liberia has one thing no other country in this project has: a national mechanism against torture whose intended scope expressly includes immigration detention. It also does not yet exist. The Independent National Commission on Human Rights describes itself as the institution leading efforts toward establishing it, twenty-two years after Liberia accepted the obligation to have one.

There is no International Committee of the Red Cross presence in Liberia. Family links run through the national Red Cross society instead. There is no route by which an individual can complain to the United Nations Committee against Torture or to the African Court. The bar association publishes an emergency telephone line, which is the most immediately useful number on this page.

Who is reachable in Liberia

The United Nations refugee agency has an operational presence in Liberia, confirmed from its own data portal, but publishes no office address or telephone the Coalition could reach. That gap is recorded rather than filled from a directory.

There is a court you can file in directly, and it is the strongest route in this project

This country is a member of the Economic Community of West African States, and the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice is open to individuals. Three features make it more useful than anything else available to a person transferred to any of the countries in this project.

You do not need permission from this country to use it.

Article 10 of the 2005 Supplementary Protocol gives access to “Individuals on application for relief for violation of their human rights”, subject only to two conditions: the application must not be anonymous, and the same matter must not already be before another international court.

There is no equivalent of the declaration that closes the African Court. The African Court’s Protocol says at article 34(6) that it “shall not receive any petition” involving a state that has not made a special declaration, and this country has never made one. Seven African states have that declaration in force today, and the only one of them in this project is Ghana. The ECOWAS Protocol contains no such requirement at all. Access follows from this country’s membership of ECOWAS.

You do not have to go through the local courts first.

The Court has held this squarely:

“The rule of exhaustion of local remedies is not applicable before the Court.”

“There is no requirement of the exhaustion of local remedies before accessing this Court.”

For a person in detention with no lawyer and no status, that removes the obstacle that defeats most international claims.

It does not matter that you are not from here.

Article 10(d) says “Individuals” and attaches no nationality condition, and the Court has applied it that way. In Abbiusi v Ghana a Belgian national was re-arrested by immigration officers on the day the charges against her were withdrawn, held for more than twelve hours without access to a lawyer and deported the next day. The Court held that second arrest arbitrary because she was never told the reason for it, found a violation of article 6 of the African Charter and awarded her ten thousand United States dollars. Ghana filed no defence and the judgment went by default, so no objection based on her nationality was argued and none was rejected. What the case shows is what the Court did without being asked: it satisfied itself of jurisdiction and admissibility under article 10(d), and exhaustion of local remedies formed no part of that test. In Saab Moran v Cabo Verde it found the detention of a Venezuelan national unlawful, ordered his release and quashed the extradition proceedings against him.

You must be the person harmed, or someone properly authorised by them. The Court has said it admits “only the victims”.

When to file: as early as you can.

This is the one part the Coalition cannot give a clean answer on, and it would be wrong to pretend otherwise. Article 9(3) of the Protocol says an action is “statute barred after three (3) years from the date when the right of action arose.” In 2018 the Court held that this does not apply to human rights claims against member states and overruled its earlier decisions. Since then it has ruled both ways, including declining to hear a claim against Liberia in October 2024 and accepting claims in 2025 and 2026. The Court has no appellate division to settle the conflict.

Do not rely on the 2018 position. File as early as possible.

What the judgment is worth, honestly.

Judgments are binding, and Article 24 of the Protocol provides for a writ of execution served on the member state and enforced under its own civil procedure. That is the law.

The practice is worse. The Court’s President, Justice Ricardo Cláudio Monteiro Gonçalves, told the inaugural meeting of Competent National Authorities in Lagos on 23 June 2025 that compliance “remains low and currently stands at about 22 per cent”. At the same meeting the Court’s Chief Registrar, Dr Yaouza Ouro-Sama, said that courts whose judgments go unenforced “are perceived as toothless bulldogs”. He was naming a perception he regrets rather than passing verdict on his own court, and the Coalition sets it out that way because the difference matters. In 2008 the Court ordered The Gambia to produce and release a detained journalist; he was never produced. In 2021 it ordered Cabo Verde to release a detained man and quashed the proceedings against him; four months later Cabo Verde flew him to the United States instead.

A judgment from this Court is a real thing: it is binding, it is public, and it names what was done. It is not a guarantee of release.

Supplementary Protocol A/SP.1/01/05 of 19 January 2005 amending Protocol A/P.1/7/91, articles 9 and 10 as substituted, and article 24 as inserted. Hadijatou Mani Koraou v Republic of Niger, ECW/CCJ/JUD/06/08, 27 October 2008, at paragraph 49. Federation of African Journalists and 4 Others v Republic of The Gambia, ECW/CCJ/JUD/04/18, 13 February 2018. Shalimar Abbiusi v Republic of Ghana, application ECW/CCJ/APP/03/24, judgment ECW/CCJ/JUD/41/24, 22 November 2024, taken by default. The Court’s own copy of this judgment was not being served from its website when the Coalition checked, and the account above follows a published review of the judgment rather than the judgment itself; it will be replaced when the text is obtained. Alex Nain Saab Moran v Cape Verde, ECW/CCJ/JUD/07/21, 15 March 2021, set aside application dismissed 24 June 2021. Chief Ebrimah Manneh v Republic of The Gambia, ECW/CCJ/JUD/03/08, 5 June 2008. Global Justice and Research Project and 3 Others v Liberia, ECW/CCJ/RUL/04/24, October 2024. Compliance figure and the Chief Registrar’s remark from the inaugural meeting of Competent National Authorities, Lagos, 23 and 24 June 2025, as reported by Vanguard and The Guardian Nigeria. Checked 8 September 2026. The Court publishes information on legal aid on its own site. The Coalition is reading these provisions and judgments, not advising on them.

Which complaint routes are open

None of the international ones, and the national mechanism against torture has not been created. Each closure and its source is below.

Closed: individual complaint to the United Nations Committee against Torture.

Liberia acceded to the Convention against Torture on 22 September 2004. It has never made the declaration under article 22 and does not appear on the depositary’s list of states that have. The Committee has no competence to receive a complaint against Liberia.

Closed: going to the African Court.

Liberia signed the Protocol establishing the African Court on 9 June 1998 and has never ratified it. It is not a party, so the question of an article 34(6) declaration does not arise.

Open in form: communication to the African Commission.

Liberia is a party to the African Charter, so the Commission’s communication procedure is available in principle. The Coalition has not identified a decided communication against Liberia and records that as open.

The inspection that has happened, and the mechanism that has not.

Liberia acceded to the Optional Protocol on the same day it acceded to the Convention, 22 September 2004. The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture has visited twice, from 6 to 13 December 2010 and from 29 October to 2 November 2018. Liberia is one of only two countries in this project the Subcommittee has visited more than once, and it asked for both reports to be published, which happened in 2023.

The national half has not been done. Twenty-two years after acceding, Liberia still has no national preventive mechanism, and has been on the Subcommittee’s list of states not complying with that obligation for more than a decade. The Independent National Commission on Human Rights describes the mechanism as being established, and says its intended scope includes prisons, police holding cells, immigration detention facilities, military detention centres, mental health institutions and rehabilitation centres.

That last detail matters here more than anywhere else in this project. The body meant to inspect immigration detention in Liberia is the one that does not exist.

Liberia has never been reviewed by the Committee against Torture.

Its initial report was due on 22 October 2005. It was submitted on 18 October 2025, nineteen years and eleven months late, and published on 23 January 2026. The review has not yet taken place. There are no concluding observations on Liberia of any kind.

Treaty positions from the United Nations Treaty Collection, chapters IV-9 and IV-9-b, the African Union depositary list, and the United Nations Treaty Body Database, all checked 8 September 2026. Subcommittee visits and non-compliance status from its own annual reports. The national preventive mechanism description is quoted from the Commission’s own page.

What this page still does not know

Where the people transferred to Liberia are now, and under what status. Whether the Independent National Commission on Human Rights has visited any of them. What the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture found in 2010 and 2018, both reports of which are published and which the Coalition has not yet read in full. When Liberia’s national preventive mechanism will exist, and whether it will in fact cover immigration detention as the Commission says it is intended to. Contact details for the International Organization for Migration in Liberia and for the United Nations refugee agency, neither of which publishes any the Coalition could reach. And the name and number of the 1907 act establishing the bar association, which the association itself does not give.

If you know any of these, the Coalition wants to hear from you.

The dated record

Every entry below is a fact with a source.

What is not established

The Coalition publishes what it can source and says plainly what it cannot. The following is open on this page.

Whether the flight was on 19 or 20 August, and whether five or six refused. What has happened to the fourteen or fifteen who entered. Whether any held United States court protection. The operating procedures. The existence and terms of the separate undisclosed arrangement. Whether the six flown on to Equatorial Guinea are being counted twice in that country’s totals. And whether any second flight has occurred.