Human rights activists in many parts of the world share a sense of alarm about the new challenges of promoting human rights in the context of heightened global concern about the threat of terrorism. Pre-existing conflicts in different parts of the globe have been sustained and exacerbated by being characterized as fronts in the global war on terrorism – a designation that governments appear to believe gives them greater latitude to disregard the constraints of international human rights law and humanitarian law. Previously peaceful countries have seen tractable, if difficult, political problems escalate into violence as governments have resorted to military force as a preferred method in confronting a terrorist threat.

Everywhere human rights activists are confronting a sea-change in what might be called the presumptive norm in international affairs that prior to September 11, 2001, saw adherence (or at least the pretense of adherence) to international human rights standards as generally desirable. The adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders in 1998 was an important indication of this growing international consensus. The Declaration codified the right to promote and protect human rights as a normative standard. Through voting for its adoption, states took on obligations to ensure that individuals would have the “effectively guaranteed” right “individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels” (Declaration 1998: Article 1).