Anti-Terrorism and Human Rights - Essay Example

Reconciling the demands of anti-terrorism and Human Rights As a matter of fact the ultimate goals of 'war on terror' and 'establishing a framework of human rights' seem to deviate but reaches a single conclusion, i.e., both work for the promotion of peace, though have different directions. On one hand anti-terrorist organisations while taking into account anti-terrorism legislation in Britain contemplate on the idea of admitting evidence that can be presented at trials of defendants suspected of involvement with terrorist organisations, while on the other hand HRA allow claimants to enforce Convention rights in British courts. Apart from the differences between the demands of the two, it can be claimed that there are a few similarities between anti-terrorism and human rights demands that can stick both to a common aim. Both have political agenda with a solid public support 1and critics believe that both need media coverage, attention and popularity. What human rights commission emphasise upon is to maintain peacekeeping and peacemaking in a political context, this is usually done by military as counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency operations. Since political nature of such operations have their own demands that deviate from those of human rights, in which every officer, non-commissioned, and soldier involved is well aware that even the most minor action by the military may carry with it major political consequences. What these operations have in difference with human rights is the close political scrutiny and control, and therefore, they require intimate civil, military, and police cooperation at all times. Human rights negate the use of military means i.e., firepower, mass, mobility, speed, which is subjected to the political limitations imposed on the conduct of the campaign. The objection is upon the usage of weapons and tactics employed for they must be proportional to the military response and must be commensurate with the political reality2. Reconciling the demands of the two philosophies of one subject enables the government to understand 'national effort' based on the principles of shared responsibility and partnership with state and local governments, the private sector, and the people3. Although the anti-terrorism conspiracy is difficult to reconcile with that of human rights commission, but Britain's CJTCA4 is trying hard to cope up with unfavourable suppositions on behalf of any police officer's opinion to reconcile with the fair trial provisions of the HRA (Human Rights Act)5. However HRA negates CJTCA to anticipate judges and juries drawing inferences from a suspect's silence while in the custody of police interrogation. Other issues that oppose HRA is the significance of the opinion as an evidence of a senior police officer that a defendant is a member of a terrorist group is also admissible at trial. Since many of the international treaties focusing on 'anti-terrorism' agrees that national courts and conferred supplementary, non-exclusive jurisdiction need not to focus very clearly on any threshold for jurisdiction in terms of the gravity or systematic character of the crimes covered. Such treaties believe that individual acts covered by the suppression treaties could be relatively routine or could be not very different in quality from serious acts of terrorism6. Jurisdiction possess the authority to exercise over them but the acts themselves as considered in isolation are extra ordinary that by contrast are unable to be given international jurisdiction. However terrorism crime is above the most common and most serious problems, at the high end of the spectrum of international crimes, which once were considered as crimes against humanity and war crimes in internal armed conflict. Since anti-terrorism law covers the availability of jurisdiction over genocide and has tended to lead to arguments for a broader interpretation of the definition of genocide, therefore terrorism must not be dealt with a soft corner of human rights as it may pave the way to happen in other crimes. Within the jurisdiction of the Court it is clear that the elements of terrorism provide the intended stability of the definitions of crimes, when we are faced with new situations involving large-scale terrorism or violence in internal armed conflict. The main hindrances between the demands of uniting anti-terrorism measures and human rights cover the issue of civil liberty and justification of measures. Civil liberty and human rights Chapter IV of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights emphasises upon civil liberties and UK Parliament does not intend any person to be deprived of his liberty7. Despite this statute, most of the conflicts between civil liberties and antidiscrimination laws involve the collision of anti-terrorism measures and human rights. This on one hand impinges on freedom of expression protected by various laws and related constitutional provisions, and on the other promotes anti-terrorism measures which demotes civil liberty. However in rare cases, constitutionally protected civil liberties trump conflicting statutory rules. Anti-terrorism demands civil libertarian sacrifice, however defence of freedom of expression from government suppression is that such freedom is necessary to ensure the existence of a vigorous marketplace of ideas8. Generalisations are ineffective in anti-terrorism measures and certain effects upon the enjoyment of human rights tend to be associated with states of emergency which human rights organisations negate. These anti-measure effects are prevalent in three categories, changes in the allocation of powers within the government, more frequent invasion of absolute rights, and greater restrictions upon other fundamental rights9. Human rights allow the legislation to function and put effective check and balance on abuse of emergency powers or determine the unreasonable extension of an emergency, especially where public criticism takes place. There is an example of such study by which the International Commission of Jurists after analysing the continuing parliamentary oversight of the emergency in Northern Ireland conducted scrutiny by the press and human rights organisations which led to amelioration of emergency measures10. Apart from such institutional metamorphoses, emergency situations often entail deprivation of fundamental rights of the population. Here no pattern is detected to incur human rights abuse leading to emergency, but often a high incidence of a severe abuse accompanies emergencies. This is true of inflexible rights that can never be suspended even at times where public emergency is about to threaten the life of the nation. Torture and Human rights Torture is the most common tool often used in anti-terrorism measures and frequently practiced by emergency regimes. Therefore many governments tends to associate it with other human rights abuses characteristic of emergencies, such as incommunicado detention, disappearances, administrative detention, and secret trials in which confessions form the primary evidence of guilt. Substantial restrictions are often placed on human right organisations during states of emergency in dealing with terrorism, in fact anti-terrorism demands the recognition of a concept of public emergencies in international human rights law to provide reasonable limits upon the anticipated restrictions of rights that emergencies would entail. Security of the State Terrorism serves as an attempt to challenge the security of the state, by threatening the country, aimed at changing the way the country is organised. Whenever human rights are discussed in context of law, it is based on the idea of a democratic society where such change is effected peacefully through the political process outlined in Article 21. Human rights promote democracy through individuals so as to protect a democratic state to protect their rights against terrorism. The thing human right organisations are unable to accept is that when challenged, the democratic state needs to be able to take extraordinary measures, even limiting rights, to ensure the continued existence of the very entity that can protect rights in the first place. These measures take place in what is sometimes called a state of emergency and might involve curfews or freedom restriction of movement (Article 13) and the closure of regular public services like restricting the right to education (Article 26)11. Human rights blame the State for the imbalance of rights and duties between the individual and the state, since the ordinary limitation possibilities in Article 29 are insufficient to address the situation properly. It is exactly in such emergency situations that human rights are most at risk and collide with anti-terrorism measures by developing a set of principles against which extraordinary measures can be tested so as to ensure that they do not shift the balance toward the state any more than is necessary. Therefore it is a test for the State to decide when a state can detract, from its human rights responsibilities just like the test for justifying a limitation, but it is formulated in a different way to respond to the different issues involved. Justification of measures For justification, the state has to confront a situation justifying derogation which must be all actual emergency, involving the whole nation, threatening the continuance of the organised life of the community, and the normal limitations are inadequate. Terrorist incidents justify derogation in which certain rights are liable to be maintained even in situations confronting the right to life (Article 3), the prohibition on slavery (Article 4), the prohibition on torture or degrading treatment (Article 5), the right of habeas corpus (to go before a judge when you have been detained, from Article 9), and the prohibition on retroactive criminal offenses (Article 11)12. Furthermore, HRA claims to have obligations which prevent them from violating certain rights even during war and terrorism. Humanitarian intervention and post-conflict reconstruction has enabled to continue with the material exploitation, and entrenched economic liberalisation13. Such exploitation is on the behalf of involvement of international economic institutions and development agencies in shaping those societies that later erupt into humanitarian and security crises. Humanitarian failure to explore the relationship between economic globalisation and insecurity means the intervening of military14. This failure is not only on the onus of human rights alone, in fact measures taken against terrorism has grossly exaggerated the threat posed to democratic societies and frequently has inflamed public reaction to particular incidents to the point at which governments may find their politically feasible options severely limited. Many critics believe that the blame for exploiting the terrorist image can be laid squarely on the media, since terrorist incidents are often deliberately stage-managed by the terrorists and publicised by the media as spectaculars. These are the perceptions discouraged by humanitarians that discourage sensational media coverage of events that are responsible in part for the widespread belief that terrorism poses a significant challenge to the survival of democracies that are the target of terrorist attack. The demands of humanitarian and anti-terrorism can reconcile provided there must be a genuine and public commitment to the rule of law that sets democracies apart from other systems and is aimed to protect the policies. It is often difficult to swallow the fact that adherence to law ties democracies' hands and forces them into a position of weakness. There might be some extreme cases of violence in which this may occur, but in the threat range that democracies face, terrorism alone is unlikely to produce sufficient justification for stepping outside the bounds of the law15. Whenever terror incidents come to public attention for propaganda purposes, they uphold troublesome and corrosive effects on public opinion, which is discouraged by the human rights activists. Experience suggests that only those nations have managed to benefit from a more sophisticated analytical approach to terrorism that has differentiated between different types of terror acts thereby assigning varying degrees of threat, and producing individualised countermeasures. This is the demand of human rights and this is what is being followed in successful democratic states as a rule of thumb. There is a need to develop firm general policy that serves against terrorism, in a humanitarian manner; however policies must be given authority to mould itself and must not be set in concrete in order to cope with an infinite range of possibilities and opportunities. The 'war' on terrorism must be based on a strategy acceptable by humanitarian as well as anti-terror measures on a global scale. What human rights demand is to cope up with the challenge of divorcing oneself from the human tragedy and the barbarism that is terrorism in order to assess objectively just what damage is being done away from the scene of the horror and what measures need to be instituted as a consequence References Bernstein E. David, (2003) You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws: Cato Institute: Washington, DC. Charters A. David, (1994) The Deadly Sin of Terrorism: Its Effect on Democracy and Civil Liberty in Six Countries: Greenwood Press: Westport, CT. Cooper Barry, (2004) New Political Religions, Or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism: University of Missouri Press: Columbia, MO. Fitzpatrick Joan, (1994) Human Rights in Crisis: The International System for Protecting Rights during States of Emergency: University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia. Foster Steven, (2006) The Judiciary, Civil Liberties and Human Rights: Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh. Hansen Carol Rae, Wilde Ralph & Poole Hilary, (1999) Human Rights: The Essential Reference: Oryx Press: Phoenix. Kent Kevin Dooley, (2000) "Basic Rights and Anti-Terrorism Legislation: Can Britain's Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998 Be Reconciled with Its Human Rights Act" In: Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law. Volume: 33: 1. pp: 221. Orford Anne, (2003) Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law: Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England. Ronczkowski R. Michael, (2004) Terrorism and Organized Hate Crime: Intelligence Gathering, Analysis, and Investigations: CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL. Sands Philippe, (2003) From Nuremberg to the Hague: The Future of International Criminal Justice: Cambridge University Press: New York. Taillon J. Paul De B, (2001) The Evolution of Special Forces in Counter-Terrorism: The British and American Experiences: Praeger: Westport, CT. Read More