UK Supreme Court Rejects Bahrain’s Immunity Plea in Remote Spying Case: The Kingdom of Bahrain v Shehabi and another [2026] UKSC 25

Introduction

Does a foreign State enjoy sovereign immunity from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United Kingdom (“UK“) in respect of civil proceedings for personal injury caused by acts of State espionage performed electronically from abroad? In The Kingdom of Bahrain v Shehabi and another [2026] UKSC 25, the UK Supreme Court held, by a 3:2 majority, that the answer is “no”.

Background

The claimants, Dr Saeed Shehabi and Mossa Mohammed, are activists and prominent members of the Bahraini opposition movement who live in the UK. They alleged that in 2011 their computers had deliberately been infected with spyware by agents acting on behalf of Bahrain operating from outside the UK. They claimed that these agents had operated the spyware via a server in Bahrain and used it to conduct covert surveillance of them over three years, monitoring their activities and exfiltrating data from their computers. Upon learning this (from WikiLeaks, among other places), they claimed that they suffered psychiatric injury and brought a claim against Bahrain in the tort of harassment.

Bahrain denied these allegations and sought an order that it enjoyed sovereign immunity from the jurisdiction of the UK courts. The claimants argued that sovereign immunity did not apply because of the following exception in section 5 of the UK State Immunity Act 1978 (“Section 5“):

5          Personal Injuries and damage to property 

A State is not immune as respects proceedings in respect of — 

(a)  death or personal injury; or

(b)  damage to or loss of tangible property,

caused by an act or omission in the United Kingdom

The English High Court and the English Court of Appeal agreed with the claimants and dismissed Bahrain’s plea of immunity. Bahrain then appealed the matter to the UK Supreme Court.

The UK Supreme Court’s Judgment

The key question before the UK Supreme Court was whether Section 5 applies (i) so long as an act or omission takes place in the UK which causes personal injury or property damage; or (ii) if Section 5 only applies if the sole causative act or all the causative acts took place in the UK or if the agent of the foreign State was physically present in the UK when the act or omission occurred.

The majority (comprising Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Hamblen and Lady Simler) held that it was the former. They reasoned that this was consistent with the natural meaning of Section 5, which was clear and unambiguous and simply required that there be a causative act within the UK that caused death, personal injury or damage, even if there were other causative acts performed elsewhere. They also held that there was no requirement in the statute that the agent of the foreign State be physically present in the UK. The majority further held that as a “straightforward use of language”, the remote manipulation from abroad of a computer located in the UK was “an act … in the [UK] ” within the meaning of Section 5, even though the person(s) responsible were not present in the UK at the material time. On this basis, they concluded that sovereign immunity did not apply.

The majority accepted that this interpretation of Section 5 was at odds with the position under the 1972 European Convention on State Immunity (“1972 European Convention“) (to which the UK is party and which the UK had passed the UK State Immunity Act 1978 to give effect to) and the 2004 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of State and their Properties (“2004 UN Convention“) (which the UK has signed but not ratified), both of which require the physical presence of the agent of the foreign State in the forum State (“Territorial Presence Requirement“) for there to be an exception to sovereign immunity. However, they held that the decision to derogate from the international law position was a deliberate one which the UK Parliament was entitled to and did make.

The minority (comprising Lord Leggatt and Lord Burrows) issued lengthy dissents. They held that the expression “an act or omission in the [UK]” could and should be read naturally to refer to an act or omission performed by an actor physically present in the UK. Such an interpretation would be consistent with the presumption that statutes should be interpreted in a manner that is compatible with public international law and does not place the UK in breach of its international obligations. (For a similar statement of principle in the Singapore context, see: The “Sahand” and other applications [2011] 2 SLR 1093 at [34].) They noted that the majority’s approach would not only be inconsistent with the 1972 European Convention and 2004 UN Convention, but also with international practice as there was no precedent in any country in which immunity had been lifted where the agent of the foreign State performing the act which caused personal injury or damage was not physically present in the forum State. (In fact, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had reached the opposite conclusion in a similar remote spying case involving Ethiopia, upholding the State’s claim to sovereign immunity (see Kidane v Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (2017) 851 F.3d 7 (D.C. Cir. 2017)).

Conclusion and Takeaways

The effect of this decision is significant. Most immediately, it means that foreign States face greater civil liability exposure in the UK for transboundary surveillance and hacking operations, even where these are conducted remotely from outside the UK. This may mean that the UK will now be seen as a more attractive forum for individuals seeking legal redress against foreign States for such acts. Looking ahead, the removal of the Territorial Presence Requirement may open the door to claims in cases of injuries or damage arising from trans-frontier torts arising from, e.g., transboundary pollution, the export of dangerous substances (e.g. explosives), or cross-border spillover acts more generally.

Many States, including Singapore, Australia, Canada, Malawi, Israel, and South Africa contain exceptions to sovereign immunity in materially identical terms to Section 5. It remains to be seen if the position taken by the UK Supreme Court in this case will be followed by these other States.

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