War Against Terrorism, Not Human Rights

In 1937, when the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism was prepared by the League of Nations, terrorism was for the first time addressed at an international level.1 Cut to the events that transpired on the fateful day of 9/11 in New York and Washington, after which the world had changed. The image of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center with the building crashing down in clouds of smoke, dust and fire became the image of international terrorism constituting one of the defining moment of global security challenges of the twenty first century.2 Most of all an attack on this scale awakened the democratic nations across the globe, to the serious implications that such actions of terrorism could have on the foundations of the domestic social contract of the state, which undermines its ability to protect its citizens from attacks and undermines the ability of democratic process to solve pressing problems.

Since then, the international community has resolutely and swiftly taken action and adopted measures to condemn terrorism. Indeed the ‘War on Terror’ has led to a range of counter-terrorism measures across the globe, which include the introduction of anti-terrorism laws; changes in reporting requirements for civil society organizations; and the increasing use of new border security technologies.3 Many countries around the world have enacted specific anti-terrorism legislation in the face of such threats and attacks. Such laws have now become a permanent feature in the legislative policy of most states. Although initially these legislations, were intended to be temporary with provisions to amend it or renew it within a specific timeframe, inevitably anti-terrorism laws has now become a permanent feature of ...

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...m in Xinjiang” by Graham Fuller and Jonathan Lipman, in the book Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland (ME Sharpe, 2004) written by S. Frederick Starr.

10. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15444081

11. Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper for the 59th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights March 25, 2003

12. Martin Scheinin. “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. Addendum: Mission to the United States,” A/HRC/6/17/Add.3, para. 6, 22 (21 November 2007).

13. No disclosure of the legal criteria governing the lethal targeting operations.

14. Martin Scheinin, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, A/HRC/10/3, para. 51 (4 February 2009).