Six matters in the Coalition’s register concern removal to Somalia. Of the four countries in this project, Somalia is the only one where a person can still bring a complaint to a United Nations body, because it acceded to the individual complaints protocol of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1990. The Committee against Torture reviewed Somalia in 2022 and recorded mistreatment of suspects during interrogation by its intelligence agency, and life-threatening conditions in prisons run by Al-Shabaab.
Why this page exists
Somalia is here because people in the register hold protection against being returned to it, and because in one long-running matter the government designated Somalia as the country of removal without notice, after the man’s presumed nationality turned out to be wrong.
What Somalia has accepted, and what it has not
Somalia acceded to the Convention against Torture on 24 January 1990, with no reservations. It has made no declaration under article 21 or article 22, so the Committee against Torture cannot receive an individual complaint about it. The Committee said so itself in 2022, recommending that Somalia consider making the article 22 declaration.
On the same day in January 1990 Somalia acceded to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to its First Optional Protocol. That second accession is frequently overlooked and it is the most consequential fact on this page. It means the Human Rights Committee can receive an individual communication against Somalia, and article 7 of the Covenant protects against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in the same absolute terms the Convention does.
Somalia is not a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, so there is no Subcommittee on Prevention visiting mandate and no obligation to establish a national preventive mechanism. It is not a party to the Convention on Enforced Disappearance.
Two routes are open, which is two more than the other countries in this project have. The Human Rights Committee, under the Optional Protocol Somalia joined in 1990. And the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which may receive a communication from any person against any state party to the African Charter with no further declaration required, and Somalia ratified the Charter in 1985.
The African Court is closed. Somalia signed the protocol establishing it in 2006 but never ratified, and has made no declaration accepting its jurisdiction over individual cases.
What United Nations bodies have found
The Committee against Torture, 2022. In its concluding observations on Somalia’s initial report, adopted on 22 November 2022, the Committee recorded concern that federal forces, particularly the National Intelligence and Security Agency, make arrests without warrants, detain people for prolonged periods, mistreat suspects during interrogations, hold high-profile prisoners associated with Al-Shabaab in “safe houses” before charging them, and do not inform detainees of their right to bail. It also noted with concern reports of life-threatening conditions in prisons in areas controlled by Al-Shabaab.
The Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism, 2026. Following a visit to Somalia in May 2025, Ben Saul reported on 30 January 2026 that the 2023 Act governing the intelligence agency gives it excessively broad functions covering intelligence collection, arrest, detention, investigation and the use of force, excludes certain rights of detainees held for less than forty-eight hours, and confers excessive immunities on its members.
A negative finding that matters. The Human Rights Council terminated the mandate of the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia on 8 October 2025, after thirty-two years, replacing it with an enhanced reporting role for the United Nations human rights office. The Independent Expert’s final report, of 12 September 2025, contains no finding on torture at all. The Coalition checked the full text: the words torture, ill-treatment, inhuman and degrading do not appear in it. Anyone citing that report for a torture proposition is citing it for something it does not say. Its treatment of detention is confined to arbitrary arrest, secret detention and executions.
The successor report from the United Nations human rights office is listed for the Council’s current session but has not yet been issued. The United Nations human rights presence in Somalia is being wound down through 2026.
Harm by a party that is not the state
Much of the risk in Somalia comes from Al-Shabaab, which is not a government. That does not put it outside the prohibition on return, and two United Nations bodies have treated its conduct as engaging Somalia’s own obligations to the extent of Somalia’s capacity. The Committee against Torture recommended that Somalia collect information about ill-treatment in places of detention in territories under Al-Shabaab control and facilitate its documentation by others. The Human Rights Committee required Somalia to take all available measures to prevent executions in regions Al-Shabaab controls.
The European Court of Human Rights reached the same result from the other direction, holding that Al-Shabaab can itself be the source of a real risk of treatment contrary to article 3.
What the case law actually holds, and what it no longer holds
The leading judgment is Sufi and Elmi v. the United Kingdom, delivered on 28 June 2011 and final on 28 November 2011. It is frequently cited for the proposition that the level of violence in Mogadishu was by itself sufficient to bar return. That part of it is no longer good law.
The European Court expressly displaced it, holding that a finding of that kind is inextricably linked to the situation as it stood when the judgment was given, and that it is present conditions in the destination that are decisive. Two later judgments, in 2013 and 2015, confirmed the displacement. Article 3 in Somali cases is now assessed on the individual’s own profile, not on the city.
Sufi and Elmi remains authoritative for three things: the method of assessing general violence, the proposition that a non-state actor can be the source of an article 3 risk, and the proposition that humanitarian conditions in displacement camps can themselves breach article 3.
The Coalition sets this out at length because the error runs the other way from most errors on this site. Citing the displaced holding would overstate the protection available and could mislead someone relying on it.
Separately, in Warsame v. Canada, views adopted on 21 July 2011, the Human Rights Committee found that Canada would breach the Covenant by removing the author to Somalia. That decision was brought under the same Optional Protocol procedure that is open against Somalia itself.
What independent organisations have documented
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both publish annual chapters on Somalia, linked below. Both recorded the termination of the Independent Expert’s mandate in October 2025. Their reporting is documentation by named organisations and is not a finding by a body with jurisdiction.
A naming point the Coalition preserves rather than tidies. The intelligence agency is called the National Intelligence and Security Agency by the Committee against Torture and the Special Rapporteur, the National Security Intelligence Agency by the Human Rights Committee, and the National Security Agency by Human Rights Watch. It is the same body. Each source is quoted as it writes it.
What is not established
Any finding on torture by the Independent Expert on Somalia. The final report of that mandate makes none, and the mandate no longer exists.
What the United Nations human rights office will report under its enhanced role. The first report has not been issued. Investigating.
Whether the winding down of the United Nations human rights presence through 2026 will reduce what can be documented in future. The Coalition notes it as a risk to the record rather than a finding.
The decisions on this site
Aden v. Nielsen, W.D. Wash., 23 January 2019, 20 June 2019, 7 November 2019 and 6 December 2019. Charged and admitted as a Kenyan national, until Kenya’s consulate general determined that he is not a Kenyan citizen. The government then designated Somalia. The court held that designating Somalia without notice or an opportunity to be heard violated due process, and that proceedings had to be reopened before any removal there.
Roble v. Bondi, D. Minn., 25 August 2025.
A.A.M. v. Andrews, E.D. Cal., 4 December 2025. Withholding of removal to Somalia had been granted on 19 March 2025.
Sources
Treaty status, from the depositary. Convention against Torture, for the accession of 24 January 1990. First Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for the accession that keeps the Human Rights Committee open. African Charter ratification table.
United Nations bodies. CAT/C/SOM/CO/1, Committee against Torture, 2 December 2022. A/HRC/60/88, final report of the Independent Expert, 12 September 2025. A/HRC/61/52/Add.2, Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism, visit to Somalia, 30 January 2026. A/HRC/WG.6/52/SOM/2, compilation by the United Nations human rights office, 2 February 2026.
Case law. Sufi and Elmi v. the United Kingdom, applications nos. 8319/07 and 11449/07, European Court of Human Rights, 28 June 2011, final 28 November 2011, and the later judgments displacing its general-violence holding. Warsame v. Canada, CCPR/C/102/D/1959/2010, views adopted 21 July 2011.
Independent organisations. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026, Somalia chapter. Amnesty International, Report 2025/26, Somalia.
Compiled 13 September 2026. Where this page summarises a decision or a report, the full document is linked above and should be read rather than relied on through the summary.