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Introduction

The U.K. government introduced emergency legislation in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the U.S. The resulting Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act became law on December 14, 2001.⁴

Human Rights Watch expressed grave reservations about the powers of indefinite detention contained in part 4 of ATCSA while the legislation was being debated by Parliament, arguing it was incompatible with the U.K.’s human rights obligations, and that the government had failed to provide evidence of a state of emergency upon which the derogation from its human rights obligations was justified.⁵ The implementation of the act has given Human Rights Watch no reason to alter its position.

Concern about Part 4 of ATCSA is widely shared. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Council of Europe’s Commissioner on Human Rights, and its Committee on the Prevention of Torture (CPT), have all expressed reservations about Part 4, while other leading human rights and civil liberties organizations have called for its urgent repeal.⁶ These organizations have questioned whether the suspension of fundamental human rights obligations is warranted by the threat to the U.K. from terrorism, and have condemned the differential treatment of foreign nationals compared to U.K. citizens as discriminatory.

Significantly, the Privy Counsellor Review Committee (known as the “Newton Committee”),⁷ a group of senior U.K. parliamentarians convened by the U.K. Home Secretary to review the ATCSA, called for the urgent repeal of Part 4 in December 2003. The Newton Committee recommended that the powers under Part 4 be replaced with measures that address the terrorist threat from U.K. nationals as well as non-nationals through the criminal justice system, and that do not require derogation from human rights obligations. The Committee has recommended alternative methods to fight terrorism that do not involve indefinite detention without trial.⁸ Its findings are echoed in a February 2004 report by the Joint Human Rights Committee, a parliamentary committee which reviews the compatibility of U.K. law with its human rights obligations.

Human Rights Watch shares the view of the Newton Committee that Part 4 of the ATCSA should be urgently repealed and replaced with counter-terrorism measures that operate within the framework of the criminal justice system and that do not require the suspension of fundamental human rights guarantees.

The response of the U.K. government to the carefully crafted and concrete recommendations offered by the Newton Committee and the Joint Human Rights Committee has been little more than a defense of the status quo. ⁹ The government’s response fails to take into account the very high costs of indefinite detention under part 4—to respect for human rights, to overall counter-terrorism strategy and not least to the detainees themselves.