The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Commentary and Guide to Practice

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is the first comprehensive review of the contributions of this important institution to understanding arbitrary detention today. The Working Group is a body of five independent human rights experts that considers individual complaints of arbitrary detention, adopting legal opinions as to whether a detention is compatible with states' obligations under international law. Since its establishment in 1991, it has adopted more than 1,200 case opinions and conducted more than fifty country missions. But much more than a jurisprudential review, these cases are presented in the book in the style of a treatise, where the widest array of issues on arbitrary detention are placed in the context of the requirements of multilateral treaties and other relevant international standards. Written for both practitioners and serious scholars alike, this book includes five case studies and a foreword by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu.

Foreword by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu; Part I. Background: 1. Overview of the working group; 2. Deliberations of the working group; Part II. Individual Case Procedure: 3. Process for taking a case to the working group; Part III. Case Jurisprudence: 4. Category I: no legal basis for detention; 5. Category II: violation of fundamental rights and freedoms; 6. Category III: violation of rights of due process; 7. Category IV: violation of rights of asylum seekers; 8. Category V: discrimination on protected grounds; 9. Detention not arbitrary; Part IV. Additional Case Studies: 10. Mohamed Nasheed v. The Maldives; 11. 'Balyoz' or Sledgehammer Cases v. Turkey; 12. Aung San Suu Kyi v. Myanmar; 13. Mukhtar Ablyazov v. France; 14. Yang Jianli v. China; Table of authorities; Appendices: required legal materials; Index.

Jared Genser is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, a public interest law firm, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He is the founder of Freedom Now, an independent non-governmental organization, and has been referred to by the New York Times as 'The Extractor' for his work freeing political prisoners around the world. Genser is the recipient of the American Bar Association's International Human Rights Award.