Overdue Process

Protecting Human Rights while Sanctioning Alleged Terrorists

A Report to Cordaid from the Fourth Freedom Forum and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame

April 2009

By George A. Lopez, David Cortright, Alistair Millar, Linda M. Gerber-Stellingwerf

Practiced used by the United Nations Security Council in the name of countering terrorism have led to serious concerns about violations of huan rights and lijmitations on the work of civil society groups. The use of blacklisting has eroded due process rights and discredited elements of the international fight against terrorism. Enhanced efforts to create clear and fair listing procedures are urgently needed and long overdue.

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To address these challenges CSOs should coordinate with other stakeholders to intensify efforts for achieving greater due process rights by pursuing three approaches: legal challenges, advocacy of structural change, and lobbying.

Pursue More Legal Challenges

Press national and regional courts to review and hear more cases pertaining to names and entities listed within their jurisdiction.

Convene the appropriate legal and political actors in the European arena who can both interpret and influence the ongoing evolution of a regional framework for dealing with listing/de-listing. Identify “best of best practices” that can be highlighted as potential models for states and international organizations. Highlight examples of due process practices that have met the requirements of international human rights law.

Engage civil society actors in the legal community to articulate alternative means of establishing protective and preventive security from terrorism without resort to measures that lack due process and the right of appeal.

Support Advocacy for Structural Change

Empower the like-minded reform oriented states at the UN with as much case data as possible regarding the dysfunctions of the current regime and the need to establish some form of judicial review mechanism.

Support efforts to engage additional national governments, especially in the global South, in a broader international effort to strengthen due process rights in listing/de-listing procedures.

Lobby

Raise awareness among relevant national, regional, and UN stakeholders about negative impacts of blacklisting on CSOs that support development and mediation efforts. Explain how the lack of due process on listing/de-listing has caused some aid and philanthropic organizations in the United States, Canada, and Europe to become risk averse and more reluctant to support development and peace dialogue activities.

Lobby for the effective implementation of Resolution 1822, especially regarding the review and “cleaning” of the Consolidated List. Articulate what a subsequent resolution should achieve in light of the structural realities of the Security Council as noted above.

Work with human rights NGOs to conduct independent assessments of developments in listing/de-listing practices, with special reference to court cases. Conduct an independent review of the comprehensive review of the Consolidated List mandated in Resolution 1822.

Notes

George A. Lopez holds the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Chair in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Lopez's research interests focus primarily on the problems of state violence and coercion, especially economic sanctions, gross violations of human rights, and ethics and the use of force. For a list of publications by Lopez, please go to the Kroc Institute, Lopez, CV.

David Cortright is chair of the Board and Senior Fellow of the Fourth Freedom Forum in Goshen, Indiana and codirector of its Sanctions and Security Research Program. He is also director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has served as consultant or advisor to various agencies of the United Nations, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, the International Peace Academy, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Along with George A. Lopez he has provided research and consulting services to the Foreign Ministry of Sweden, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and the Foreign Ministry of Germany. He has written widely on nuclear disarmament, nonviolent social change, and the use of incentives and sanctions as tools of international peacemaking.

Alistair Millar is president of the Fourth Freedom Forum and the director of its Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation. He also teaches graduate level courses on counterterrorism and U.S. foreign policy at The Johns Hopkins University and The George Washington University, and at the Department of Homeland Security's Center of Excellence on the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland. Millar has written numerous chapters, articles, and reports on international counterterrorism efforts, sanctions regimes, and nonproliferation, and has served as consultant to various agencies of the United Nations, the European Union, and to several European governments on sanctions and counterterrorism issues.

Linda M. Gerber-Stellingwerf is program director of the Fourth Freedom Forum and codirector of the joint Fourth Freedom Forum/Kroc Institute Sanctions and Security Project. She received her Masters of Library Science degree from the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. Gerber-Stellingwerf has coauthored and edited various reports and books produced by the Fourth Freedom Forum. She is a member of the American Library Association.

The Fourth Freedom Forum's mission is to encourage discussion, development, and dissemination of ideas that can free humankind from the fear of war. The goal is to prevent armed aggression and eliminate nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction through enforceable international law. The Forum explores options for more effective and humane forms of economic statecraft to promote global norms and international cooperation.

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