Swedish Naval Drills Breach European Convention on Human Rights – Report

Legal officials within the Swedish military have lashed out at the country's ongoing naval drills, which they said ride roughshod over the European Convention on Human Rights.

The ongoing Swedish anti-submarine drills run counter to the 1994 Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights, according to military legal officials quoted by Radio Sweden.

A total of 15 vehicles are taking part in the drills, including corvettes, minesweepers, a motorboat and a submarine.

Among other things, the exercises include simulated torpedo launches and the dropping of a death bomb, which are drilled in line with the Swedish armed forces' special shoot-to-kill rule, known by the Swedish acronym IKFN, or "interference in the event of peacetime infringement of Sweden's territorial sovereignty while maintaining neutrality."

In light of this, the lawyers of the Swedish armed forces warned against protecting the country's territorial integrity by firing on the mock enemy during the drills. The lawyers have insisted that the European Convention on Human Rights should certainly prevail over the IKFN rule.

Their stance was opposed by Uwe Brink, a professor of international law, who told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet that during the adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights, the potential situation when an armed intervention is necessary to protect a country's own territory was not taken into account.

He said that in such situations, responsibility for the loss of human life will belong to those who have violated the state border of a country, according to international norms.