Issue III The prohibition against torture and the prevention of childhood statelessness 21. At present, it is reported that tens of thousands of women and children with links to territories formerly controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (‘ISIL’) are detained in detention camps in Northeast Syria under conditions that amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.34 About 120 Dutch alleged ‘foreign fighters’ are still in Syria, Iraq or Turkey. About a third of them reside in Syrian-Kurdish camps al-Roj or al-Hawl (women) or in various detention centres in Northeast Syria (men). In addition, almost 200 minors with a link to the Netherlands reside in the region.35 22. Article 2(2) CAT emphasises that “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as justification of torture”. The Committee against Torture identifies threats of terrorist acts or violent crime to be among these exceptional circumstances that cannot constitute justification of torture.36 By depriving persons of their nationality, States risk violating the absolute and customary prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In and of itself, deprivation of nationality may cause severe mental suffering, as the identity of the person concerned has been taken away and that person is left in a state of uncertainty. Deprivation of nationality is likely to constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, particularly where it results in statelessness.37 23. Attempted expulsion consequent to deprivation of nationality is also likely to meet the threshold of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when this leads to arbitrary detention, a violation of the principle of non-refoulement, or the forcible separation of families. 38 The prohibition of refoulement is absolute and extends to situations where there is a risk of ill-treatment from non-State actors and situations in which the national has been deemed a threat to national security. It includes the extradition of a national to a country where they face a real risk of being subjected to illtreatment, and can also include violations relating to prison conditions, 39 solitary confinement and incommunicado detention, including depriving an individual of contact with their family. Refusing to repatriate and/or blocking the right to (re)admission through deprivation of nationality leaves persons trapped in the aforementioned detention conditions. States’ failure to repatriate nationals exposes them to treatment which constitutes a serious violation of international human rights law, and implicates States’ responsibilities under international law. They have a “duty to act with due diligence to ensure that the lives of their nationals are protected from irreparable harm”. 40 Indeed, human rights experts have concluded that “the urgent return and 34 Rights and Security International, ‘Europe’s Guantanamo: The indefinite detention of European women and children in North East Syria’(2021), https://www.rightsandsecurity.org/assets/downloads/Europes-guantanamo-THE_REPORT.pdf. 35 Numbers according to the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), last updated 1 March 2022, https://www.aivd.nl/onderwerpen/terrorisme/dreiging/uitreizigers-en-terugkeerders. 36 Committee against Torture, General Comment No. 2: Implementation of article 2 by State parties (2008) CAT/C/GC/2, para 5. 37 Principles on Deprivation of Nationality as a National Security Measure (2020), Principle 9.3.2. 38 ibid, Principle 9.3.3. 39 HRC, ‘General Comment No. 9: Article 10 (humane treatment of persons deprived of liberty)’ (1982) HRI/GEN/1/Rev.9. Vol I, p. 180, para 1. 40 Submission by the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism and the UN Special Rapporteur on arbitrary, summary and extra-judicial executions in the case of H.F. and M.F. v. France (Application no. 24384/19) before the European Court of Human Rights (2020), p. 6. 7