Terror Meets Tyranny? The Interface Between Counter Terrorism And Human Rights
AbstractIn the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC on 11 September 2001, one of the prevailing issues on the minds of the United Nations and the international community as a whole has been that of counter-terrorism. This has been the subject of much recent discussion and saw a flurry of activity and debate within the Ad Hoc General Assembly Committee on Terrorism and the specialist UN Security Council Counter-Terrorist Committee in the days and weeks following the attacks. Within those activities, the Security Council issued resolution 1373 which, amongst other things, urged members of the United Nations to take certain measures to counter-terrorism and required them to report to the Committee on the steps taken to implement the Resolution. The reaction of States to the latter Resolution has been, almost invariably, to introduce or amend counter-terrorist lgislation and to take various other policy or regulatory steps in support of what has become known as the "war against terror". At the same time, politicians, civil liberties groups and various non governmental organisations have raised concerns about the level to which such steps are impacting upon, or have the potential to adversely affect, due process, the rule of law and civil and political rights. |