International law experts applaud Amnesty International report on Monday, which call on European countries to stop using diplomatic assurances to send foreigners back to nations that use torture, saying that these assurances are not effective.

“This report is timely, as it comes at a time when there’s debate in the EU regarding these issues,” says Sarah Wolff of the Clingendael European Studies Programme in the Hague.

In its report ‘Dangerous Deals: Europe's Reliance on 'Diplomatic Assurances' against Torture’, London-based Amnesty International maps out how European countries use “unreliable, unenforceable” diplomatic assurances to send foreigners “alleged to be threats to national security to countries where they are at risk of torture.”

"Assurances against torture from governments that routinely practise such abuse simply cannot be trusted. European governments that accept these hollow promises are undermining the absolute prohibition of torture," says Julia Hall, Amnesty International's expert on counter-terrorism and human rights in Europe.

One example cited in the report was of Tunisian national Sami Ben Khemais Essid, who had been detained in Italy under charges of terrorism. He was deported from Italy to Tunisia in June 2008 “on the promise of Tunisian officials that he would not be ill-treated in custody there,” the report said. However, it explains further, “eight months after his return, he alleged that he was tortured during an interrogation at the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior.”

Ineke Boerefijn, associate professor at Utrecht University’s Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, points out that “the fact that one country needs to ask for assurance from another country that there shall be no torture already indicates that there is risk of torture.”

Boerefijn points to the UN Convention Against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights which explicitly say that no state may expel a person to another state if there are grounds to believe that the person should be subjected to torture.

“These are very firm guarantees, which may not be undermined. Diplomatic assurances too often turn out not to provide the necessary safeguards,” Boerefijn says.

Wolff also pointed to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which became legally binding for all EU countries with the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. Article 19 of this Charter cites that no person may be expelled to a state where there is risk of torture.

Within the so-called Stockholm Programme, which is a programme regarding the EU area of Freedom, Security and Justice, the EU is in the process of creating a Human Rights Action Plan dealing with judicial and police cooperation between EU and non-EU countries.

“Details of the Stockholm Programme Action Plan, which includes the Human Rights Action Plan should be known in the coming months,” Wolff says.

Amnesty based its report on the use of diplomatic assurances by numerous European states to justify forcibly removing foreigners deemed to be national security threats. The report underlined that these practices have “increased considerably” following the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the US.

The report includes research on a dozen countries including Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Amnesty’s Hall stresses that European governments “must recommit to the fundamentals of human rights protection,” pointing out that “diplomatic assurances do not provide such a safeguard and the practice of relying on them should be abandoned starting now.”

As an alternative to extradition to countries where people risk torture, Boerefijn said that suspects held in European countries should be tried "in that European country, or a third country with a reliable human rights record.”

Wolff, meanwhile, says that in the longer run EU countries should "promote rule of law in police and judiciary measures with non-EU countries."