¹ Department of Constitutional Affairs, Review of the Implementation of the Human Rights Act, London, Lord Chancellor's Department, 2006.Google Scholar

² Most famously A v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] UKHL 56, which led to the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.Google Scholar

³ For the general background see C. A. Gearty and J. A. Kimbell, Terrorism and the Rule of Law, London, Civil Liberties Research Unit, King's College London, 1995.Google Scholar

⁴ Stella Rimington and Ian Blair respectively. The Treasurer Gordon Brown also engaged with the subject at the same time: see ‘Brown Backs Call to Extend 28-Day Limit on Detention’, Guardian, 13 November 2006, p. 1, where there are also reports on the other interventions.Google Scholar

⁵ For a general review of the law and practice in the area, see Gearty, C. A., ‘11 September 2001, Counter-Terrorism and the Human Rights Act’, Journal of Law and Society, 32 (2005), p. 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ For two excellent studies of the tensions caused by this assumption see U. Baxi, The Future of Human Rights, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2002, and C. Douzinas, The End of Human Rights, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2000.Google Scholar

⁷ See further C. A. Gearty, Can Human Rights Survive?, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006.Google Scholar

⁸ 1577 UNTS 3 (1989).Google Scholar

⁹ UN Doc A/811 (10 December 1948).Google Scholar

¹⁰ See A. W. B. Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire. Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, and K. Sellars, The Rise and Rise of Human Rights, Stroud, Sutton Publishing, 2002.Google Scholar

¹¹ J. Dunn, Locke: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, is a good summary.Google Scholar

¹² See Article 1.1 of both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 993 UNTS 3 (1966) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 999 UNTS 171 (1966).Google Scholar

¹³ Fascinating on this is Mandel, M., ‘A Brief History of the New Constitutionalism, or “How We Changed Everything so that Everything Would Remain the Same”’, Israel Law Review, 32 (1998), p. 250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ Noting immediately that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due to many factors, this being only one of them.Google Scholar

¹⁵ N. Bobbio, The Age of Rights, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996.Google Scholar

¹⁶ For a good example of the genre, see Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Human Rights Report 2005 (Cm 6606), London, Stationery Office, 2005.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See A. Williams, EU Human Rights Policies: A Study in Irony, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam 1990; Arab Charter on Human Rights 1994.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Since 1994, the Constitution states: ‘The State respects and protects human rights’.Google Scholar

²⁰ The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights 1981, and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights 1998, respectively.Google Scholar

²¹ Notably the American Convention on Human Rights 1969.Google Scholar

²² A point the Chinese make much of in their annual review of the human rights record of the United States: see the report for 2004 published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, 3 March 2005, available at http://english.people.com.cn/200503/03/eng200503_175406.html.Google Scholar

²³ www.icj.org.Google Scholar

²⁴ It is too early for a comprehensive comparative treatment. Two excellent books with a broader range are R. A. Wilson (ed.), Human Rights in the ‘War on Terror’, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, and H. Duffy, The ‘War on Terror’ and the Framework of International Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar

²⁵ An outstanding example of engaged scholarship with a human rights dimension, albeit also with a broader remit, is J. Rehman, Islamic State Practices, International Law and the Threat from Terrorism, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2005.Google Scholar

²⁶ The law restricting spouses is the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) (Amendment) 2005. For the controversy over the detention legislation, see International Commission of Jurists, ‘E-Bulletin on Terrorism and Human Rights’, 12 (June 2006), p. 3, available at www.icj.org.Google Scholar

²⁷ See www.icj.org.Google Scholar

²⁸ See for a general flavour of this kind of literature B. Netanyahu, Terrorism: How the West Can Win, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986. The point is dealt with at length in C. A. Gearty, ‘Human Rights in an Age of Counter-Terrorism’, Oxford Amnesty Lecture held on 23 February 2006, text available at www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/human-rights/ under index of documents.Google Scholar

²⁹ See, for example, M. Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil. Political Ethics in an Age of Terror, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2004.Google Scholar

³⁰ A. M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2002.Google Scholar

³¹ Oberleitner, G., ‘A Just War Against Terror’, Peace Review, 16 (2004), p. 263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² Gearty, C. A., ‘With a Little Help from Our Friends’, Index on Censorship, 34 (2005), p. 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³³ Huntington, S., ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Affairs, 72 (1993), p. 22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ See T. Blair, ‘Not a Clash Between Civilizations but a Clash About Civilization’, speech to the Foreign Policy Centre and Reuters, 21 March 2006.Google Scholar

³⁵ See the speech by the Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer of Thornton in Sydney on 13 September 2006, on ‘The Role of Judges in a Modern Democracy’ in which he condemned the detentions in Guantanamo as a ‘shocking … affront to the principles of democracy’, available at www.dca.gov.uk/speeches/2006/sp060913.htm.Google Scholar

³⁶ See the speech by the Secretary of State for the Home Department Dr J. Reid at Demos in September 2006, ‘Security, Freedom and the Protection of our Values’, available at www.labour.org.uk.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid.Google Scholar

³⁸ For one among many examples see the comments reportedly made about the likelihood that judicial proceedings would be ignored in relation to the deportation of persons to Iraq: Guardian, 5 September 2006, p. 1.Google Scholar

³⁹ Chahal v United Kingdom (1996) 23 EHRR 413.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Soering v United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ramzy v Netherlands.Google Scholar

⁴² Now assisted by an excellent report, Human Rights Watch, Dangerous Ambivalence. UK Policy on Torture Since 9/11, London, Human Rights Watch, 2006.Google Scholar

⁴³ [2006] EWCA Civ 1078.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ R(Al-Skeini) v Secretary of State for Defence [2005] EWCA Civ 1609.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Apart from in Northern Ireland, of course, but the colonial analogy never worked there, the six counties that made up the British section of the province of Ulster being part of the UK as a matter of constitutional law; [2006] EWCA Civ 1190.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ A v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No 2) [2005] UKHL 71. Their lordships considered that immediate administrative actions to divert catastrophe could be legitimately undertaken, even where the source of the information that underpinned the action might have been contaminated by suspicions of torture.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Terrorism Act 2000, section 1.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Sections 59–61.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Terrorism Act 2000, part 2.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See Gearty and Kimbell, Terrorism and the Rule of Law for a flavour of the discussion in the 1980s and early 1990s.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Terrorism Act 2000, secton 5, schedule 3.Google Scholar

⁵² K. D. Ewing and C. A. Gearty, Freedom under Thatcher. Civil Liberties in Modern Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 241–50.Google Scholar

⁵³ Section 1.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Part 4.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ A v Secretary of State for the Home Department[2004] UKHL 56. For more details see Gearty, C. A., ‘Human Rights in an Age of Counter-Terrorism: Injurious, Irrelevant or Indispensable?’, Current Legal Problems, 58 (2005), p. 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁶ Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See Secretary of State for the Home Department v MB [2006] EWCA Civ 1140; Secretary of State for the Home Department v JJ [2006] EWCA Civ 1141.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Compare R (Singh) v Chief Constable of the West Midlands [2006] EWCA Civ 1118.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ These points are further developed in Gearty, Can Human Rights Survive?.Google Scholar