UK - Supreme Court, Al- Sirri v Secretary of State for the Home Department, [2012] UKSC 54

The Court emphasised that Article 1F(c) should be interpreted restrictively and applied with caution. There should be a high threshold "defined in terms of the gravity of the act in question, the manner in which the act is organised, its international impact and long-term objectives, and the implications for international peace and security". There should be serious reasons for considering that the person concerned bore individual responsibility for acts of that character. "Serious reasons" was stronger than "reasonable grounds" and the evidence from which those reasons were derived had to be clear and credible or strong. "Considering" was stronger than suspecting or believing but the decision-maker need not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt or to the standard required in criminal law. However, if the decision-maker was satisfied that it was more likely than not that the applicant had not committed the acts in question, it was difficult to see how there could be serious reasons for considering that he had done so. In reality, there were unlikely to be sufficiently serious reasons for considering the applicant to be guilty unless the decision-maker could be satisfied of his guilt on the balance of probabilities.

The Court rejected the UK government’s argument that any act defined in domestic law as “terrorism” would suffice for Article 1F(c), stating that there can only be one interpretation of an international treaty. Instead the Court adopted UNHCR’s definition in para. 17 of its Guidelines on International Protection: Application of Exclusion Clauses: Article 1F of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees", 2003: “Article 1F(c) is only triggered in extreme circumstances by activity which attacks the very basis of the international community's coexistence. Such activity must have an international dimension. Crimes capable of affecting international peace, security and peaceful relations between states, as well as serious and sustained violations of human rights would fall under this category.”

The Court noted that the ISAF force DD had been fighting did not attract the same protection under international law as peacekeeping forces, however the fundamental aim of the force was to assist in maintaining international peace and security, which is one of the purposes of the UN as set out in the UN Charter. The Court confirmed that, as a matter of law and common sense, an attack on ISAF is thus in principle capable of being an act “contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations” sufficient to justify exclusion from refugee status.