VIENNA, 26 May 2008 - The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) launched a handbook aimed at improving the protection of human rights of soldiers and other armed forces personnel on Wednesday in Vienna.

Human rights ruling does not alter commanders' authority to make operational decisions, nor does it leave them open to personal legal challenge

The Chief of the Defence Staff has issued the following statement on the day of the Appeal Court ruling in Secretary of State for Defence v R (Smith):

"We are disappointed by this judgment, which allows claims to be brought against the Department under the Human Rights Act in relation to operations overseas. It has potential implications for the ability of our Armed Forces to conduct such operations, which we are now considering carefully.

"We take very seriously the duty of care we have to our people. But we have consistently argued that, in the heat of battle, during dynamic, fast-moving military operations on foreign territory, it would be unrealistic to expect to be able to guarantee the rights and freedoms which the European Convention on Human Rights seeks to secure.

"Nevertheless, I want to reassure commanders at all levels that this judgment does not alter their authority to make operational decisions, nor does it leave them open to personal legal challenge. Any claims under the Human Rights Act would be brought against the Department, not individual commanders; legal liability under the Act lies with MOD.

"Meanwhile, we shall continue to argue for a legal framework that enables our Armed Forces to sustain the very high level of effectiveness in difficult and dangerous operations that they have demonstrated so convincingly in recent years."

The highlighted paragraph is what BAFF had been saying all along, but was in stark contrast with the MOD's own public reaction to the judgement -

... We are very concerned by the attempt to insert lawyers into the chain of command in the middle of a battle, which would only create uncertainty, hesitation and potentially greater risk to our people. [MoD Defence News, 19 May 2009]

There may well be questions to be considered in light of the ruling which was issued by the Appeal Court on 18 May 2009: for example, to what extent there are implications for decisions about the equipping and management of bases, or whether in fact the ruling does not alter the existing military requirement to consider force protection.

BAFF Executive Chairman Douglas Young was concerned that rather than the ruling itself, it was "ill-informed" criticism of the ruling which could lead to "dangerous confusion" amongst junior commanders required to make split-second decisions.

(19 May 2009) Even before the decision in Secretary of State v R (Smith) had been issued by the Court of Appeal, commentators were explaining how "damaging" it would be to apply human rights "on the battlefield" or "in the heat of battle". This line appealed to some of the media: