Cabo Verde

What has happened

The United States concluded a binding agreement to transfer people “seeking protection from return to their country of origin” to a state which, on the United States Department of State’s own findings four months earlier, “did not have legislation nor an institutional body that provided for granting asylum or refugee status” and recorded no asylum applications at all in the reporting year.

The agreement’s one real safeguard turns on a decision Cabo Verde has no apparatus to make.

The arrangement, and what it cost

This one is binding, and that distinction matters.

Unlike most of the African arrangements, which the United States publishes as non-binding instruments, this is a treaty-level agreement filed in the Treaties and Other International Acts Series: “Signed at Praia November 19, 2025; entered into force November 19, 2025.” The language throughout is “the Parties”, “hereby agree”, “shall”. There is no clause disclaiming legal rights, and there could not be one.

TIAS 25-1119.1, state.gov.

It covers asylum seekers specifically.

Article I applies to “third-country nationals who were present in the territory of the United States of America seeking protection from return to their country of origin or former habitual residence.”

The safeguard against return home depends on a determination Cabo Verde cannot make.

Article III(4): Cabo Verde “agrees not to send any individual transferred from the United States of America pursuant to this Agreement to his or her country of origin or nationality or former habitual residence, except in cases in which a final decision has been made relating to any pending claims for protection.”

That is materially stronger than the assurances in the non-binding instruments. Its force depends entirely on the quality of the Cabo Verdean protection determination.

The agreement was signed five months after a travel-ban warning.

An internal State Department cable of mid-June 2025 identified 36 countries, Cabo Verde among them, giving them 60 days to address concerns or face full or partial entry bans. The agreement was signed on 19 November 2025.

The sequence is documented. Causation is not, and the site should give the dates and stop there.

The cap lives in a document that has not been published.

Article III(2) makes transfers “subject to the number of third-country national transfers outlined in operating procedures developed pursuant to Article IV,” and Article IV provides that those procedures “are intended to establish pre-transfer procedures, in particular the number and profile of individuals to be transferred.” No cap is public. Article V provides only that disputes be resolved “through dialogue or diplomatic channels.” There is no monitor, no reporting, no access and no review.

What the record says about Cabo Verde itself

The United States had already found that no such determination exists.

The State Department’s Cabo Verde report for 2024, published in July 2025, four months before signature:

“The government had acceded to but not implemented the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. The country did not have legislation nor an institutional body that provided for granting asylum or refugee status. Because the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had no established presence in the country, the International Organization for Migration referred asylum seekers requesting protection and assistance to the UNHCR multicountry office in Dakar, Senegal.”

“Asylum applications were rare and were all referred to UNHCR. There were no reports during the year of any applications.“

An edition difference is itself worth recording. The 2023 report carried a distinct “Access to Asylum” heading and the sharper formulation that there was “no systematic procedure in place to register and process asylum claims.” The 2024 edition keeps the substance under a softer heading.

The Committee against Torture found the same void in 2016, in the absence of any report from Cabo Verde.

The title of the document is itself the finding: Concluding observations on Cabo Verde in the absence of a report. Cabo Verde’s initial report had been due on 3 July 1993. It ignored reminders in 2014, 2015 and twice in 2016, and declined to send a delegation.

The Committee found that “neither the Constitution nor Law No. 99/V/99 … include the risk of being subjected to torture in the country of destination as a reason for granting protection”; that there is an “absence of an institutional framework for an asylum determination procedure”; that “there is no systematic registration and processing of asylum claims at the borders”; and that asylum seekers “would not be protected against refoulement during the judicial review process, since the review would not have a suspensive effect on an expulsion order,” while other undocumented migrants face “an administrative procedure of expulsion, without access to judicial review.”

CAT/C/CPV/CO/1, 26 January 2017. Cabo Verde has still never submitted a report; the initial one is now more than 33 years overdue.

Cabo Verde has not accepted individual complaints.

It acceded to the Convention against Torture in 1992 and has made no declaration under article 22, so no individual may bring a complaint against it to the Committee. It ratified the Optional Protocol in 2016; whether a National Preventive Mechanism has since been established could not be verified.

African regional law was already on the point, twenty days before signature.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted Resolution 645 on 30 October 2025, providing that African states “must not conclude or maintain migration partnerships when they know, or ought reasonably to know, that such agreements entail a real risk of serious human rights violations,” and calling on them “to make public any existing or proposed agreements with non-African States concerning the reception or detention of migrants, asylum seekers, or refugees.”

The first days

Cabo Verde is the reverse of every other country in this project. It has the strongest inspection machinery of the nine and no complaint route at all.

Its national commission was designated in 2018 as the national mechanism for the prevention of torture, with an express power to make regular visits, with or without notice and without restriction, to any place where people deprived of their liberty are or may be. The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture visited in 2019. That is more than any other country in this group can say.

Against that: no individual can complain to the United Nations Committee against Torture, Cabo Verde has never even signed the Protocol establishing the African Court, there is no International Committee of the Red Cross presence, the United Nations refugee agency has no country office, the bar association’s website is offline, and Cabo Verde has never in thirty-four years submitted a report to the Committee against Torture.

Who is reachable in Cabo Verde

There is no International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Cabo Verde, and it does not appear on the ICRC’s own listing of where it works. The Coalition could not establish which delegation, if any, covers it. The United Nations refugee agency has no country office: coverage runs through its Regional Bureau for West and Central Africa in Dakar, and Cabo Verde is not among the seven countries of the Senegal multi-country office, so the responsible office could not be identified and no contact details are published here.

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

Open: preventive inspection, and it is the strongest in this project.

Cabo Verde signed the Optional Protocol on 26 September 2011 and ratified it on 1 April 2016. It designated its national commission as the national mechanism on 28 September 2018, and the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture visited from 29 September to 10 October 2019.

Cabo Verde is the only one of these nine countries with both a designated national mechanism and a completed Subcommittee visit.

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

Cabo Verde acceded to the Convention against Torture on 4 June 1992. 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 Cabo Verde.

Closed, and never opened: going to the African Court.

Cabo Verde has never signed the Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, let alone ratified it. The African Union’s depositary list shows a dash in both the signature and the ratification columns. It is the only country in this project with no relationship to that Court at all, and the question of an article 34(6) declaration cannot arise.

Open in form: communication to the African Commission.

Cabo Verde 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 Cabo Verde and records that as open.

Cabo Verde has never submitted a report to the Committee against Torture.

Its initial report was due on 3 July 1993. It has never been submitted. The Committee reviewed Cabo Verde in the absence of a report in November 2016 and adopted concluding observations on 5 December 2016, CAT/C/CPV/CO/1. A second report was due on 7 December 2020 and is also outstanding. Thirty-four years after acceding, no report has ever arrived.

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. The designation of the national mechanism is from Resolução n° 98/2018, published in the Boletim Oficial, I Série N° 61 of 24 September 2018, and hosted by OHCHR.

What this page still does not know

Whether the national mechanism has visited anyone transferred to Cabo Verde, which it has an unusually strong power to do. Whether any of its visit reports are published: its news pages record visits to the Praia central prison and to places of deprivation of liberty on Fogo, Brava and Sal, but several of those pages no longer load and no visit report is downloadable from its publications section. What the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture found in 2019, its report being published only with the state’s consent. Which International Committee of the Red Cross delegation, if any, covers Cabo Verde. Which United Nations refugee agency office is responsible for it. A street address for the bar association, whose site is offline. And why a state with the best preventive machinery in this group has never once reported to the Committee against Torture.

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 any transfer has occurred since May 2026. The operating procedures required by Article IV, including the number and profile of people to be transferred. Whether any payment has been made. Whether Cabo Verde has established a National Preventive Mechanism since 2016 or enacted asylum legislation since the Committee’s findings. The Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture visited in 2019 and its report could not be retrieved. And whether any Federal Register designation finds that Cabo Verde provides access to a full and fair asylum procedure: none was located, and that absence is itself a finding.