236. Article 3 obligation is absolute.

The obligation not to remove a person to a real risk of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment1 is absolute, regardless of the conduct of the person being expelled and regardless of the risk that person may pose to the country seeking to expel him2. The Supreme Court has approved a relativist approach to the scope of Article 3, that the desirability of extradition should be taken into account in assessing whether the punishment the person being extradited is likely to receive in the receiving country has reached the 'minimum level of severity' needed to violate the prohibition3,