ACLU comments to European Court of Human Rights in Babar Ahmad and Others v. The United Kingdom

The European Court of Human Rights has temporarily blocked the extradition of four terrorism suspects from the United Kingdom to the United States on the ground that their confinement in a US "supermax" prison might violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Court asked for submissions on the protections US law provides against inhuman and degrading prison conditions; the ACLU, along with the National Litigation Project at Yale Law School and two UK human rights organizations, sought and obtained the Court’s permission to submit these comments.