Human Rights Strategies in an Age of Counter-Terrorism

The reaction to the events of 11 September 2001 and later terrorist attacks have posed a major challenge to the protection and, indeed, the very concept, of human rights. In the name of the ‘war on terror’, law enforcement agencies have been granted unprecedented powers, ¹ people have been detained without charge or trial, ² and the prohibition of torture has been questioned by academics ³ and systematically undermined by governments. ⁴ Whilst this shift away from liberty and towards more repressive criminal justice policies forms the backdrop to this chapter, it is not my aim to add to the burgeoning literature that explores whether or not the shift is justified by the necessities of the fight against terrorism. ⁵ This chapter starts from the premise that, even in an alleged ‘age of terror’, ⁶ human rights do deserve to be upheld. My intended readership consists of those who share this belief. I am interested not in whether, or to what extent, human rights should be protected, but instead in how this can be done effectively: what are promising strategies of challenging repressive counter-terrorism policies? This, it seems to me, is one of the key questions, if not the key question, facing ‘the human rights movement’ today.