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Emmerson QC, Ben --- "New counter-terrorism measures: Continuing challenges for human rights" [2018] ELECD 160; in Nowak, Manfred; Charbord, Anne (eds), "Using Human Rights to Counter Terrorism" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 125

Book Title: Using Human Rights to Counter Terrorism

Editor(s): Nowak, Manfred; Charbord, Anne

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781784715267

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: New counter-terrorism measures: Continuing challenges for human rights

Author(s): Emmerson QC, Ben

Number of pages: 41

Abstract/Description:

The challenges posed by global and national counter-terrorism measures are complex and evolving, and their impact on the protection of human rights is significant. Many of the measures making up the current counter-terrorism framework were adopted, perhaps in haste, immediately after 2001 and UN Security Council resolution 1373 (2001). The social and political context of their adoption meant that many of the measures were introduced without due regard to international law requirements, including (but not limited to) international human rights obligations. The erosion of liberties that has resulted has been pervasive and, in many cases, counter-productive. There is emerging evidence that military and law enforcement responses to terrorism, which disregard individual rights, cannot defeat (and may in fact create conditions conducive to) terrorist activity. That is borne out by the fact that new terrorist threats and terror groups have emerged since 2001, even in parts of the world where counter-terrorism resources have been heavily deployed. What happened in 2001 remains true today: when terrorist acts occur, the outrage of the international community and States affected tends to precipitate a hurried response that leads to the adoption of often ill-conceived counter-terrorism measures. Governments, desperate to avoid further attacks ‘on their watch’, understandably (but short-sightedly) see the introduction of more draconian counter-terrorism measures as the most appropriate reaction. The population of an affected State, reeling from the effects of a terrorist attack and fearful of further such attacks, tend to offer little opposition to incursions of civil liberties.