Chapter 5 • Human Rights and Arrest, Pre-Trial and Administrative Detention The important question of foreseeability has inter alia been considered in relation to the concept of a breach of the peace under United Kingdom law, with the European Court holding that “the relevant rules provided sufficient guidance and were formulated with the degree of precision required by the Convention”.31 This was so since it was “sufficiently established that a breach of the peace is committed only when an individual causes harm, or appears likely to cause harm, to persons or property or acts in a manner the natural consequences of which would be to provoke others to violence”; it was “also clear that a person may be arrested for causing a breach of the peace or where it is reasonably apprehended that he or she is likely to cause a breach of the peace”.32 However, it found that where applicants had been arrested for about seven hours before being released on bail and where there were no rulings by national courts on the question whether the arrests and detentions accorded with English law, article 5(1) of the Convention had been violated.33 To be lawful under international human rights law, arrests and detentions must: l be carried out in accordance with both formal and substantive rules of domestic and international law, including the principle of non-discrimination; l be free from arbitrariness, in that the laws and their application must be appropriate, just, foreseeable/predictable and comply with due process of law. 4.2.1 Unacknowledged detentions, abductions and involuntary disappearances Where people have been abducted, illegally detained under domestic law, and subsequently murdered or made to disappear, the Human Rights Committee has concluded that the detention violated article 9 of the Covenant.34 Abduction and detention by agents of one State party of persons in another country provides another example of “an arbitrary arrest and detention”.35 In its General Comment No. 20 on article 7, the Committee stated, furthermore, that 31 Ibid., para. 55 at p. 2736. 32 Ibid., loc. cit. 33 Ibid., p. 2737, paras. 62-65. 34 Communication No. 612/1995, Arhuacos v. Colombia (Views adopted on 29 July 1997), in UN doc. GAOR, A/52/40 (vol. II), pp. 181-182, para. 8.6 (murder); Communication No. 540/1993, C. Laureano v. Peru (Views adopted on 25 March 1996), in UN doc. GAOR, A/51/40 (vol. II), p. 114, para. 8.6 (disappearance). 35 Communication No. R.12/52, D. Saldías de López on behalf of S. R. López Burgos (Views adopted on 29 July 1981), in UN doc. GAOR, A/36/40, p. 183, para. 13. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 169

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