37. Terrorism And Human Rights Monitoring

Abstract

This chapter presents a brief overview of the types of issues involving terrorism that have arisen before human rights monitoring bodies. The types of issues that arise before human rights monitoring bodies thus concern State measures that allegedly violate human rights in combating terrorism. The chapter reviews some of the procedural and practical problems that monitoring bodies have encountered, drawing most of examples from the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Human Rights Committee (HRC). To begin with, all international systems of human rights monitoring are subsidiary to the national protection mechanisms. Human rights monitoring that is based on individual complaints naturally requires someone to complain. A way of avoiding difficult issues of proof as regards alleged violations of the right to life has been developed by the ECtHR by its insistence on a proper investigation by the security forces. Keywords: European Court of human rights (ECtHR); human rights committee (HRC); human rights monitoring bodies; national protection mechanisms; terrorism