An Alert is a designation the Coalition applies to a state that receives people transferred from the United States under a third-country removal arrangement. It is not the Coalition’s opinion of that state. It records that a named authority has made a named finding, and it says which.
This page sets out the test, so that any reader — including a government that carries a designation — can check whether it has been applied correctly.
The two grounds
A state is designated when a qualifying authority has made a finding on either ground. A state may carry one, or both.
Ground 1 — Torture or ill-treatment by state officials
A finding of torture, or of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, by police, military, prison or immigration personnel. It also covers conduct by others carried out at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official, which is the definition the Convention against Torture uses.
Ground 2 — Refoulement
A finding that people have been exposed to return to a place where they face persecution or torture, or the documented return of people holding international protection. It includes chain refoulement — onward transfer to a further state from which return then follows — because the Committee against Torture reads Article 3 of the Convention as reaching not only the state a person is sent to but any state to which that person may subsequently be sent.
Who counts as an authority
- A court of competent jurisdiction, in any country
- A United Nations treaty body, special procedure or working group
- A regional human rights body, such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights or the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
- A national human rights institution
- The state’s own official submissions to an international body
The last of these is deliberate. A government’s own admission, made to a body it is answerable to, is the most probative evidence available about that government.
What does not trigger an Alert
Reporting does not, however credible. Journalism is often how the Coalition learns that something has happened, and this site relies on it throughout. But an Alert is a finding, and news reporting is not a finding. Where reporting is the only source for a fact, that fact does not carry a designation.
Advocacy does not. Nor does a complaint, a petition or a filed case. A complaint before a court or a commission is an allegation until that body rules. Where the Coalition cites one, it says so, and it does not describe it as a finding.
An allegation recorded by an authority is not a finding by that authority. Supervisory bodies routinely record what complainants allege. Recording is not adjudicating, and the distinction is preserved wherever it arises.
A poor human rights record in general does not. Many states have one. A designation attaches to a finding about torture or about refoulement, not to a reputation.
How an Alert is written
Every trigger is dated, quoted, and linked to the primary document. If the Coalition has not opened the document, the trigger is not published.
An Alert names institutions. It names an individual only where an authority’s finding attaches to that person, or where the person made the statement attributed to them on the record. No individual is named as a perpetrator of torture, because in none of the designations now in force has an authority made such a finding against a named person. If one does, that will be said plainly, with the finding attached.
Review and removal
Each designation carries a stated review point — a proceeding, a disclosure or a decision whose outcome would bear on it. A designation is lifted when the ground that triggered it no longer holds, and the removal is recorded on the country’s page along with the reason. A designation is not a permanent judgment on a country, and it is not intended to survive the facts that produced it.
The designations now in force
| State | Ground 1 — Torture | Ground 2 — Refoulement |
|---|---|---|
| Eswatini | Designated | Not established |
| Ghana | Not established | Designated |
| Equatorial Guinea | Designated | Designated |
The differences are the point. No onward removal from Eswatini has been documented, so Eswatini is not designated for refoulement. No authority has found that the people transferred to Ghana were tortured in Ghana, so Ghana is not designated for torture. A test that returned the same answer for every state would not be a test.
If you think a designation is wrong
Write to the Coalition and say which trigger is mistaken and why. If a trigger cannot be supported by the document cited for it, it will be withdrawn and the withdrawal published. If a designation rests on a fact that has since changed, the Coalition wants to know that too.
The Coalition publishes its corrections. A designation that cannot survive being checked should not be published, and one that has been checked and stands is worth more than one that has not.