HUMAN RIGHTS IN UN COUNTER-TERRORISM DEBATE: IMPERATIVE OR IMPEDIMENT

Abstract

“The war on terrorism” that was declared by the international community in the aftermath of 9/11 created a state of emergency. As a result, United Nations Security Council established the fact that the international peace and security should be the first and foremost on its priority list of agendas. UN Security Council created its subsidiary bodies to deal with counter terrorism but it failed to take human rights into consideration in the beginning. Initially, the procedures of UN Security Council committees gathered a criticism on account of causing damage to human rights laws, freedom of life and humanitarian laws. As a result, the procedures of committees evolved with passage of time to ensure that the counter terrorism measures are in accordance with human rights and humanitarian laws. This article provides an overview of the progress that gradually resulted in the prominence of human rights by UN Security Council committees and Human Rights Council. Recently, there has been initiated a debate again that the human rights protection is a hindrance in countering terrorism effectively and the opposition of human rights protection laws argue that there should be declared a state of emergency in a country to completely eliminate the threat of terrorism. The article also provides an overview of the ongoing debate on human rights as to what extent this debate proves to be an imperative or impediment suggesting a mixed and balanced approach as neglecting the human rights completely can cause more tragic situation than terrorism on one hand, however, on the other hand, there is a need to restrict some of the liberties as terrorists utilize those human rights and liberties to cause havoc in the world.