US-UK military ties threatened by EU human rights laws targeting British soldiers, says former American general
- The so-called special relationship between the militaries of the transatlantic allies ‘could be put at risk’, claims David Petraeus
The former commander of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan warned on Friday that the United States’ military cooperation with the UK could be threatened by the growing use of human rights laws to target British soldiers.
Writing in The Times, retired general David Petraeus says the European Court of Human Rights is increasingly extending domestic human rights legislation onto the battlefield. This has led to British soldiers being charged with human rights abuses – sometimes decades after the events in question.
“The current ‘fog of law’ may undermine the effectiveness of British troops in multinational coalitions,” he wrote. “The very special relationship between our two militaries, which has been built over decades of serving together in the hardest tests of battle, could be put at risk by the present situation.”
No court ... can force our authorities to subject US personnel to the legal processes that have confronted some British soldiers
Petraeus insisted Britain’s fighting capacity will be reduced if it cannot reform the legal framework under which it operates.
He said the United States has not had to deal with situations like Northern Ireland, which he said was marked by “the relentless and seemingly unending pursuit of veterans from the 1970s”.
