In a regional, national and global response to terrorism, the emphasis
necessarily lies on preventing the next terrorist act. Yet, with
prevention comes prediction: the need to identify and detain those
considered likely to engage in a terrorist act in the future. The
detention of 'suspected terrorists' is intended, therefore, to thwart a
potential terrorist act recognising that retrospective action is of no
consequence given the severity of terrorist crime. Although preventative
steps against those reasonably suspected to have an intention to commit
a terrorist act is sound counter-terrorism policy, a law allowing
arbitrary arrest and detention is not. A State must carefully enact
anti-terrorism laws to ensure that preventative detention does not
wrongly accuse and grossly slander an innocent person, nor allow a
terrorist to evade detection.
This book examines whether the preventative detention of suspected
terrorists in State counter-terrorism policy is consistent with the
prohibitions on arbitrary arrest and detention in international human
rights law. This examination is based on the 'principle of
proportionality'; a principle underlying the prohibition on arbitrary
arrest as universally protected in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, and given effect to internationally in the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and regionally in regional
instruments including the European Convention on Human Rights.
The book is written from a global counter-terrorism perspective, drawing
particularly on examples of preventative detention from the UK, US and
Australia, as well as jurisprudence from the ECHR.
