Human Rights and Counterterrorism

Balancing human rights and counterterrorism measures has long been a concern for both states and international organizations such as the United Nations. The latter has adopted a wide number of measures that, together with other instruments of international human rights law, set a priority to ensure that effective counterterrorism activities and the protection of human rights are not conflicting goals, but complementary and mutually reinforcing. The relationship between human rights and counterterrorism must be analyzed from two standpoints. First, how do acts of terrorism impact the human rights of the victims and whole societies and, second, how do counterterrorist activities (mostly carried out by states) impact the human rights of both suspects of acts of terrorism and ordinary citizens. Furthermore, recent court cases underline the need to critically review the implementation of the sanctions targeting the fight against terrorism.