International Human Rights Law and Practice

This chapter seeks to demonstrate, among other things, that these dangers to personal liberty far outweigh the threats to human safety posed by serious ‘terrorist’ threats. The reader will acquire an appreciation of the obligation of states to protect their citizens from terrorism, including the debate as to whether terrorists possess human rights obligations. We shall then proceed to examine the most pertinent human rights violations in counter-terrorist operations. These include the application of the principle of legality to terrorist legislation, the permissibility of relevant derogations, the right to life and the practice of targeted killings, the various contours of unlawful detention against terrorist suspects, torture and ill-treatment in order to gather intelligence information and promote confessions and finally the practice of abductions, unlawful extraditions and illegal rendition. To be sure, counter-terrorist operations have been found to infringe a range of other civil and political rights, such as the freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial.