The Human Target

Overview

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. The right to life is a broad, fundamental right that obliges States to respect and ensure that the life of each person is protected under the law. It is a supreme right and prohibits the arbitrary taking of life by States. States must protect the right to life to the fullest possible extent, without discrimination. The right to life is non-derogable. The right to liberty and security of person protects the freedom from arbitrary confinement of and injury to bodily and mental integrity.

Impact Summary

Civil society are targeted and killed by security forces or otherwise subject to extrajudicial killing, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and other deprivations of life, liberty, and security under the guise of counter-terrorism and/or P/CVE. Given the breadth of these rights and the positive obligations of States for both acts and omissions, the failure to adopt and implement robust preventive, investigative, punitive and remedial measures can constitute rights violations.

Overview

Freedom of opinion and expression encompasses the rights of individuals to hold and express their own views, and to receive and access information as they so choose.These freedoms are central to all functioning, open, and democratic societies. Freedom of opinion and expression are closely tied to the realization of many other rights, including the rights to freedom of assembly and association and freedom of religion or belief, and are particularly important for civil society to undertake their work safely and without reprisal.

Impact Summary

The overly broad and vague definitions of terrorism and (violent) extremism found in legislation and regulations around the world enable the misuse of such terms to target and repress civil society, human rights defenders, dissenting voices, and others. Whether directly or indirectly, through censorship, content moderation, smear campaigns, intimidation, operational restrictions, and other forms of repression, such misuse can have a chilling effect on civil society. There are often specific forms of misuse against women human rights defenders and LGBT and gender diverse persons as reprisal for individual and communal transgressing of perceived or actual gender identity or sexual orientation.

Overview

The right to a fair trial and due process requires that all individuals have equal access to justice in a fair, public, and timely hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal. Due process further requires procedural safeguards to ensure fairness, including but not limited to the right to be present at the hearing, a presumption of innocence, protection from forced confessions or testimony, access to effective legal counsel, the opportunity to call and cross-examine witnesses and appeal, adequate time and facilities to prepare one’s case, and an adequate remedy.

Impact Summary

In the context of counter-terrroism and P/CVE measures, civil society is often caught in the dragnet of overlapping judicial and administrative harassment, as well as fundamental fair trial and due process violations, exacerbated by exceptional powers and compromised judiciaries. Often, individuals are not even formally charged, but forcibly disappeared, arbitrarily detained, and subject to torture, cruel, inhuman and/or degrading treatment and/or extrajudicial killings. When they are charged, their legal proceedings are often subject to long delays, incommunicado detention, lowered evidentiary thresholds, disproportionate sentencing, and more.

Overview

Every individual has the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, which contribute to the backbone of a free, open, and democratic society, protecting the rights of individuals to assemble through events or peaceful protests (on and offline), to unionize, to strike, and more. Freedom of assembly and association includes the rights of individuals to form, lead, participate in, fundraise for, or otherwise support groups in which they can collectively express, promote, pursue and defend shared interests and goals.

Impact Summary

The overly broad definitions of terrorism and (violent) extremism found in legislation and regulations around the world enable the designation of and crackdown against civil society organizations and their legitimate activities. Misuse includes operational restrictions like counter-terrorism financing measures and sanctions; surveillance through spyware, biometrics, and drones; and other overly restrictive measures that aim to have a chilling effect on civil society. Such measures have disproportionately targeted the rights of particular groups of people, including ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic minorities to assemble and associate.

Overview

The right to privacy requires that every individual be protected from unlawful or arbitrary infringements on their private lives, including their communications, places of residence, families, and public reputations. This right requires governments to ensure the availability to legal protection to prevent and remedy any unlawful or arbitrary infringements. The right to privacy applies to the exercise of this right in digital spaces and enables enjoyment of civil and political and economic, social and cultural rights.

Impact Summary

Counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures, including technologies (biometrics, artificial intelligence, content moderation, and more), surveillance and information-sharing powers, and administrative measures, such as sanctions, movement restrictions, and monitoring are misused to infringe on the right to privacy among civil society organizations, individuals, families, and communities. Such misuse has been further complicated by the integration of the private sector into State efforts, as well as nefarious practices of surveillance with the aims of extortion, bribery or threats that target individuals and some of the most sensitive aspects of their lives.

Overview

Economic, social, and cultural rights include the right to adequate food, education, work, housing and property, heath, social security and welfare whose provision enables people to take part in cultural life, and more. Cultural rights apply both to individuals and groups, and they include the rights to practice, develop, and access aspects of culture such as sacred sites, shared values, and language. States have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfill these rights. While many of these rights cannot be immediately fulfilled due to resource constraints, States have an obligation to provide the necessary minimum levels, as well as to work toward the progressive realization of each right.

Impact Summary

The misuse of counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures, including judicial harassment and administrative measures like operational restrictions, social welfare and immigration proceedings, employment bans, and asset freezing, can have immediate and long-term negative consequences for civil society organizations, individuals, families, and communities and their economic, social and cultural rights. Designations and social stigmatization and marginalization can also have serious impacts on these rights, often with deeply gendered effects.

Overview

Ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic minorities are entitled to a number of rights, including the right to openly practice their own cultures, religions, and languages, to participate in society without interference, and to participate in policymaking that impacts their minority group or region. States have obligations to protect minorities, as well as their cultural identities, and to implement policies that facilitate conditions of protection.

Impact Summary

Across regions, ethnic, religious, cultural, and linguistic minorities face the brunt of counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures, including designations, dissolutions, and de-risking. Victims of counter-terrorism and terrorism may belong to communities or groups that experience marginalization and other forms of discrimination not just due to ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic identity, but also intersecting forms of discrimination in their personal lives and advocacy on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, ability, age, and more.

Overview

Every individual is entitled to the right to request, receive, or implement humanitarian assistance including to protect against other human rights abuses in cases of armed conflict or other humanitarian disasters. States have obligations to assist those impacted by such disasters, including people seeking international protection, and to provide access and facilities to other States, donors, and organizations who seek to provide impartial humanitarian assistance including through humanitarian exemptions.

Impact Summary

Increasingly, counter-terrorism measures have impacted the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver independent and impartial assistance to those in need. Where States have labeled armed conflicts as “terrorist-contexts” or where the United Nations or States have designated organizations as terrorism entities, counter-terrorism measures including counter-terrorism financing measures and sanctions have negatively impacted the operations and delivery of such assistance, with chilling effects, such as broad bans on legitimate humanitarian activities. The negative use of sanctions and listing to target humanitarian actors operating in conflict sites, for example, has had devastating consequences for access to food, medicine, shelter and the essential means for the civilian population to survive.

Overview

The right to participate in political and public affairs requires that each individual be free to either directly impact public affairs or to vote in adequate and fair elections for representatives who will do so. Participation can also include public debates, consultations, and actions with non-governmental organizations like unions, non-profits, and other interest groups. The right is a gateway right and intertwined with other rights like the rights to peaceful assembly and association and freedom of opinion and expression.

Impact Summary

Counter-terrorism and P/CVE law and decisionmaking are often characterized by closed, inaccessible spaces subject to secrecy and classification. Civil society has been excluded from lawmaking, risk assessments, designation decisions, and the design, delivery, and oversight of related regulatory controls, though good practices are gradually emerging on the global stage.

Overview

Intersecting discrimination describes the ways in which individuals experience compounding forms of discrimination based on different facets of their identities, including their race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, disability, age, language, and socioeconomic status. In practice, States must consider these characteristics and the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination in the creation and implementation of law and policy, as well as structural inequities and power asymmetries when implementing their human rights obligations toward certain individuals and groups.

Impact Summary

Counter-terrorism and P/CVE measures including criminalization, surveillance, compulsory rehabilitation, and carceral responses have been used to regulate and suppress marginalized groups and individuals subject to intersecting forms of discrimination. For instance, gendered counter-terrorism measures, such as overbroad “family values” offenses and prohibitions on women’s dress, have exacerbated societal stigma and created unique, disproportionate burdens on Muslim women and youth.