In July 2011, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held in Al-Jedda v. United Kingdom that the UK was responsible for the misconduct of its troops deployed as part of the UN-authorized Multinational Force in Iraq. Together with two other recent cases, Al-Saadoon and Al-Skeini, this may be the start of a trend in the ECtHR directed at clarifying and expanding the scope of the European Convention by partially overcoming two notorious sets of precedents: the Behrami jurisprudence on the attribution of conduct of military personnel involved in operations under UN auspices; and the particularly ambiguous Bankovi? jurisprudence on the extraterritorial scope of human rights protection. This article focuses on the Behrami side of Al-Jedda’s story: the question of attribution of conduct. Despite the attempts by the ECtHR to pay lip-service to Behrami by distinguishing it on the facts, the practical result of Al-Jedda is that Behrami should no longer be considered ‘good law’ when it comes to attribution of conduct during UN-authorized peace support operations. This is a major development, given that Behrami was almost universally criticised by legal commentators for being wrong both as a matter of law and as a matter of policy.

This article deals with the recent Al-Jedda House of Lords judgment from the point of view of public international law. Mr Al-Jedda unsuccessfully sought a remedy under the Human Rights Act against his prolonged internment without charge or trial in a British prison in Iraq. The article provides an in depth analysis of the opinions delivered by their Lordships. It advances some criticism of the line of reasoning adopted. Despite reaching the right result, the distinguishing arguments employed by the House to eschew the controversial Behrami case by the European Court of Human Rights seem unconvincing. Secondly, the decision that Article 5 ECHR was ‘qualified and/or displaced’ was an inherently ambiguous one. It left too many questions open as to the law applicable to Mr Al-Jedda's internment, some of which this article seeks to clarify.

Most countries provide asylum through domestic legislation, such as a statute incorporating the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. France, Italy, and Germany stand out as three of very few European countries specifically to guarantee a right of asylum in their national Constitutions. The origin, wording, and scope of these constitutional provisions vary, depending on historical factors specific to each country. This article examines the right of asylum guaranteed in the Constitutions of France, Italy, and Germany from a historical perspective. It discusses how this right has evolved in all three countries, especially in light of the Refugee Convention and recent European Asylum Legislation. It concludes that however unique and individual constitutional asylum has traditionally been regarded as in France, Italy, and Germany, international obligations and recent European commitments have absorbed its distinctiveness, making it a redundant, almost obsolete, concept.