Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Table of abbreviations
- Table of cases
- Table of conventions
- 1 Introduction
- PART ONE
- PART TWO
- PART THREE
- 6 International humanitarian law
- 7 International human rights law
- 8 Case study – Guantanamo Bay detentions under international human rights and humanitarian law
- 9 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - International human rights law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Table of abbreviations
- Table of cases
- Table of conventions
- 1 Introduction
- PART ONE
- PART TWO
- PART THREE
- 6 International humanitarian law
- 7 International human rights law
- 8 Case study – Guantanamo Bay detentions under international human rights and humanitarian law
- 9 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The epithet ‘subversive’ had such a vast and unpredictable reach, the struggle against the ‘subversive’ had turned into a demential generalized repression with the drift that characterizes the hunting of witches and the possessed.
(National Commission on the Disappeared, Argentina, 1984)[I]t is not only possible, but also necessary, to fight terrorism while respecting human rights.
(Council of Ministers, Council of Europe, 2002)The legal framework
The basic rules of international human rights law (IHRL) are, for the most part, straightforward. While IHRL protects and promotes a broad range of rights, at its core it is intended to ensure a basic standard of protection for all human beings at all times in all places.
Human rights obligations, which are essentially incumbent upon states, entail ‘negative’ obligations not to violate protected rights and ‘positive’ obligations to take necessary measures to ‘ensure’ their protection. Establishing an effective counter-terrorism strategy to guard against the commission of serious violations of human security such as those committed on September 11 is not only consistent with the human rights framework, it is required by it. But to be lawful – and indeed, as has been noted in recent months, to be effective – that strategy must in turn respect and be informed by the limits of IHRL. The content of human rights law is not blind to, but accommodates, the real security issues to which the events of September 11 gave dramatic illustration.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The 'War on Terror' and the Framework of International Law , pp. 274 - 378Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005