Recommendation 21

The introduction of an absolute time limit risks breaching the UK’s human rights obligations and preventing access to justice. An absolute time limit of 6 years is unfair in the context of overseas operations, where potential claimants may be embroiled in protracted conflict situations, detained, displaced, or suffering from physical or psychological injuries. Indeed, had an absolute time limit existed previously it would have prevented cases that have uncovered, for example, the inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees by UK Armed Forces, or UK complicity in rendition and torture. Not only would that have prevented justice for the victims of those abuses, but it would also have meant that such practices would have continued unchecked.