1 Introduction
1. In the last year a number of international projects
assessing the impact of counter-terrorism measures on human rights
since 2001 have come to fruition, drawing out a number of important
themes from experience around the world. Most notable among these
is the Report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism
and Human Rights, Assessing Damage, Urging Action (2009),[1]
which urges governments to engage in a stock-taking process designed
to ensure that respect for human rights and the rule of law is
integrated into every aspect of counter-terrorism work.
2. The Report of the Eminent Jurists' Panel identifies
a number of concerns that require urgent attention, many of them
themes which have featured large in our work, for example:
- The use of preventative measures
such as administrative detention;
- The need to re-establish the primacy of the criminal
justice system in states' response to terrorism;
- The use of secret procedures; and
- The increase in international co-operation between
intelligence agencies without appropriate safeguards and accountability
mechanisms.
3. Our predecessor Committee began its work on Counter
Terrorism Policy and Human Rights in 2004, with its Report on
the Review of Counter-Terrorism Powers.[2]
In this Parliament we have published 16 substantive reports in
our ongoing inquiry into the subject, making many recommendations
and proposing many amendments to the legislative framework to
give effect to those recommendations.
4. The purpose of this report, which will be our
final report on counter-terrorism policy and human rights in this
Parliament, is to pick up some of the most significant themes
in our work on this subject, with a view to identifying the most
pressing human rights concerns in the area of counter-terrorism
policy and suggesting the urgent action which is required to address
them.
5. Reviewing our work over the course of this Parliament
in this important field of policy, we find that there are several
themes to which we have returned time and again, and we highlight
some of these in this report. We welcome the fact that the Government
has now accepted that political discussion about counter-terrorism
policy should take place within the framework of human rights.
In place of the supposed conflict between human rights on the
one hand and public safety on the other, which pervaded political
discourse in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it is now widely
accepted that human rights law itself imposes positive obligations
on the State to take active steps to protect people from the real
risk of terrorism. Counter-terrorism measures may be positively
required by human rights law, where they are necessary and proportionate,
and human rights law provides the framework within which to assess
the important evidential questions about the necessity and proportionality
of those measures.
6. We are pleased to note that this shift in the
terms of the debate is reflected in various Government statements
that "the protection of human rights is a key principle underpinning
all the Government's counter-terrorism work."[3]
It is expressly mentioned, for example, as being central to the
Government's National Security Strategy. All too often, however,
we have identified examples in the Government's counter-terrorism
policy of human rights being squeezed out by the imperatives of
national security and public safety. It is easy to pay lip-service
to the importance of human rights but the test of that commitment
is in the substantive policy outcomes. On that score there is
an enormous amount of urgent work that remains to be done by the
next Parliament. It is time to bridge the gap between the rhetoric
and the reality in the field of counter-terrorism policy and human
rights. In short, it is time to bring human rights back in, in
substance as well as form.
1 Assessing Damage, Urging Action, Report of
the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and
Human Rights (International Commission of Jurists, December 2008),
at 40-42.The Eminent Jurists Panel is an independent Panel convened
by the International Commission of Jurists, chaired by Justice
Arthur Chaskalson (former Chief Justice of the South African Constitutional
Court). Back
2
Eighteenth Report of Session 2003-04, Review of Counter-terrorism
Powers, HL 158/HC 713. Back
3
See e.g. Memorandum to the Home Affairs Committee: Post-Legislative
Assessment of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, Cm 7797
(1 February 2010) at para. 58; Letter to the Chair of the Committee
from Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP, Home Secretary, dated 15 September
2009, Ninth Report of Session 2009-10, Counter-Terrorism Policy
and Human Rights (Sixttenth Report): Annual Renewal of Control
Orders Legislation 2010, HL 64/HC 395 (hereafeter "Report
on 2010 Control Orders Renewal") at p. 43. Back
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