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RECOMMENDATIONS
Human Rights Watch has made the following recommendations
to the new CTED Executive Director for steps to address the concerns identified
above:
- Specialized personnel with expertise in human rights
should be recruited to the CTED staff to review states reports to the CTC
from the perspective of their fulfillment of obligations under Resolution
1456, including by reference to the scrutiny of and comment on those
states by U.N. and regional human rights mechanisms, and to the reporting
of human rights non-governmental organizations.
- Any human rights issues of concern identified in
this ongoing review process should be incorporated as matters of further
inquiry in CTC requests to states for supplementary reports. There should
also be closer attention to ensuring the timeliness of states
supplementary reporting.
- States should be required to report to the CTC not
just on the fulfillment of their obligations under Resolution 1373, but
also on the steps taken to ensure that this is consistent with the
requirements of Resolution 1456.
- There should be an enhanced requirement that states
provide details of the practical application of the legislation and
executive machinery covered by Resolution 1373.
- The substantive communications from the CTC to
states about the matters on which they are required to provide
supplementary information should be made public.
- The CTED should be scrupulous in ensuring that CTC
comments on state reports cannot be construed as requiring or proposing
courses of action that are detrimental to the safeguarding of
international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law.
- The CTED should ensure that the CTC Directory of
Counter-Terrorism Information and Sources of Assistance is appropriately
vetted for compliance with Resolution 1456.
Key to the implementation of these recommendations, in
our view, is the creation of at least one senior staff position in the CTED,
filled by a human rights expert, preferably heading a team of two or three,
with the responsibility to review counter-terrorism measures for their
compliance with states rights obligations, to ensure more effective
cross-referencing between the CTC and U.N. human rights bodies and other
independent rights monitors, and to offer forward-looking proposals for making
rights an important tool in the counter-terrorism effort.
The job description for this human rights position should
include reviewing how U.N. mechanisms and others are reporting on compliance by
states with their human rights commitments, and evaluating member state
reports to the CTC with particular focus on areas where counter-terrorism
measures and human rights inevitably overlap, such as the conduct of law
enforcement, detentions, prosecutions, denial of refugee status, and
refoulement. To this end the new human rights staffer should also be mandated
to take full account of shadow reportingcommentary by non-governmental organizations
on states compliance with Resolutions 1373 and 1456. Most importantly, the
senior staffer should shape the questions to be put to governments about
practical aspects of their implementation of Resolution 1373 obligations,
specifically how human rights commitments are taken into account and
safeguarded.