Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“CAT”) prohibits the expulsion, return or extradition of a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that s/he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. Article 16 of the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance prohibits in similar wording return to the danger of being subjected to enforced disappearance.129 Further, it is generally accepted that States shall also not transfer any person to another country if this would result in exposing him or her to serious human rights violations, notably arbitrary deprivation of life, or torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.130 Where a State withdraws a person’s nationality and forces the person to leave the country (including by way of extradition or expulsion) and return to a territory where they may be subjected to life-threatening risks or to treatment amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, such State conduct is very likely to be inconsistent with non-refoulement obligations.131 States should also not transfer a person to a country where they may be at risk of further or onward removal to a country where they are subject to serious harm as outlined in the preceding sentence.132 Where an individual is detained (including for enforcement of immigration laws and in the context of military detention) as a result of withdrawal of nationality, such detention must not be arbitrary. Arbitrary detention includes situations in which there is no oversight or review as to the length of detention, which may in some 129 Numerous provisions in regional human rights treaties also codify the principle of non-refoulement. See e.g., American Convention on Human Rights (adopted at the Inter-American Specialized Conference on Human Rights, 22 November 1969), Article 22(8); Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, OAS Treaty Series No. 67, Article 13(4); Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, 2000/C 364/01, Article 19(2); Arab Charter on Human Rights (15 September 1994), Article 28; and European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, CETS 197, Article 40(4). 130 See e.g., ICCPR, Articles 6 and 7; UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life, 30 October 2018, CCPR/C/GC/36, para. 31; and UN Human Rights Committee, CCPR General Comment No. 20: Article 7 (Prohibition of Torture, or Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment), 10 March 1992, para. 9; and UN Committee Against Torture, General Comment No. 4 (2017) on the implementation of article 3 of the Convention in the context of article 22, 4 September 2018, CAT/C/GC/4, para. 26. 131 See e.g., Human Rights Council, Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, 24 December 2012, A/HRC/22/44, para. 38: The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which has a specific mandate to receive and examine cases of arbitrary deprivation of liberty, “regards cases of deprivation of liberty as arbitrary under customary international law in cases where”, inter alia, “ it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty” and “[w]hen the total or partial on-observance of the international norms relating to the right to a fair trial, spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the relevant international instruments accepted by the States concerned, is of such gravity as to give the deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character.”. 132 T.I. v United Kingdom, European Court of Human Rights, App. no. 43844/98, 7 March 2000, p. 14: “Normally a person whose asylum claim has already been rejected in the ‘safe third country’ will be unable to obtain an effective legal remedy when returned there. Indirect removal in those circumstances could violate the nonrefoulement principle. No asylum-seeker should therefore be sent to a third country without a reliable assessment in his case of the available guarantees, e.g. that the person will be re-admitted, that he will enjoy effective protection against refoulement, that he will have the possibility to seek and enjoy asylum, and that he will be treated in accordance with accepted international standards.” See also Abdolkhani and Karimnia v Turkey, European Court of Human Rights, App. no. 30471/08, 22 September 2009, para. 88: “The Court reiterates in this connection that the indirect removal of an alien to an intermediary country does not affect the responsibility of the expelling Contracting State to ensure that he or she is not, as a result of its decision to expel, exposed to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the [European Convention on Human Rights]”. UNHCR > GUIDELINES ON STATELESSNESS NO.5 35