In 1998 the defence attempted to use it during Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial, but Lord Nicholls said that the Act flouted a battery of international legislation on human rights abuses to which Britain is a signatory, and would have meant, according to the arguments of Pinochet's legal team, that British law would have protected even Adolf Hitler.

In June 2006 the law was used to dismiss an appeal by three Britons (Sandy Mitchell, Les Walker and Ron Jones) and a Canadian (William Sampson) who were convicted and imprisoned for car bombings and illicit alcohol trading in Saudi Arabia.

Despite the ruling, the four continue to maintain that they were mistreated by Saudi officials both before and after they were jailed in November 2000.

[1] In 2017 the Court of Appeal held that the employment rights of two Sudanese embassy workers were within the scope of the EU-derived Working Time Regulations; a decision subsequently affirmed by the Supreme Court at UKSC 62.

However, once it was established that the matter fell within EU law, Article 47 of the Charter, granting the right to a fair trial, gave the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court the power to 'protect' that right to the extent of overriding the inconsistent provisions of the 1978 act.