Merton & Everett LLP Files Landmark Case at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice

Merton & Everett LLP, acting together with the Global Strategic Litigation Council and the Cornell Law School Transnational Disputes Clinic as co-counsel, filed an application before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice on behalf of Democracy Hub LBG.

The application is brought in respect of 27 victims, many of whom had previously obtained protection from US immigration courts against return to their countries of origin on account of risks of persecution, torture or other serious harm.

The case challenges Ghana’s role in receiving, detaining and facilitating the onward removal of West African nationals transferred from the US under an undisclosed arrangement between the two governments. It asks the Court to declare that Ghana’s conduct violates its obligations under regional and international human rights law; order the cessation of the arrangement; prohibit further transfers and onward removals under it; require disclosure of its full terms; and grant reparations to the victims and guarantees of non-repetition.

The application also asks the Court to affirm, as a matter of Community law, that no ECOWAS Member State may participate in any arrangement that delivers non-consenting persons into another State’s custody where that arrangement exposes them to a real risk of refoulement, collective expulsion, arbitrary detention, denial of access to counsel, denial of an effective remedy or other serious human rights violations.

The action claims, among others, that Ghana, in violation of its obligations under international law and domestic human rights law, received persons in need of international protection, detained them without lawful basis, judicial oversight or access to counsel, denied them any effective opportunity to seek protection in Ghana and exposed them to onward removal to countries where Ghana knew, or ought to have known, they faced a real risk of persecution, torture or other serious harm.

Merton & Everett LLP remains committed to constitutional accountability, refugee protection, human rights and the rule of law in Ghana and across the ECOWAS region.