by Fabien Novial
BERLIN, Aug 27 (AFP) - Legal experts from around the world warned Friday that human rights and the rule of law are being trampled on in the US-led "war on terrorism".
"The war against terrorism is more than a set of specific laws. It is a way of thinking. A disturbing rhetoric (which) assumes that rights and freedoms are a nuisance and interfere with security," Nicholas Howen, secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), told a conference in Berlin.
"We thought we would never have to answer again whether someone who commits barbaric acts can be treated humanely," he said.
"Instead, we witness governments again trying to justify torture in the name of national security, detainees held in legal black holes, the right to a fair trial cut down," Howen told more than 150 legal experts at the conference.
Arthur Chaskalson, the president of the ICJ, a Geneva-based non-governmental organisation, said human rights had never been under such threat since the end of the Cold War.
"We see countries holding suspects without access to their family or lawyers and without trial," said Chaskalson, who is chief justice at South Africa's constitutional court.
The United States, which launched its "war" after the September 11, 2001, attacks, and its major ally in Iraq, Britain, came in for particular criticism. So did a number of Asian countries, notably Indonesia.
"Have governments collectively declared a global state of emergency? If so, let us remember that any state of emergency must be an extension of the rule of law, not an abrogation of it," said Howen, whose ICJ organised the conference.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, in a key note opening speech laying out her position on the issue publicly for the first time, said she had been troubled by developments in recent years.
In Britain, if a "suspected international terrorist cannot be removed from the country, for fear of ill-treatment in another country or for any other reason, he or she will effectively remain in indefinite detention, without charge or trial", Arbour said.
"More than a dozen individuals are now being held under this provision."
She said that some extradition orders lodged by the United States for people suspected of terrorist activities were in contravention of international law.
ICJ member Adnan Buyung Nasution, recalled how Indonesian authorities had quickly pushed through a number of anti-terrorist laws in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombing, in which around 200 people were killed.
He pointed out that Indonesian police were responsible for "the arrest, or more correctly the kidnapping, of religious teachers and Islamic activists, who were accused of being involved in the Bali bomb blast".
"The families of the victims ... were not at all informed about the whereabouts of their relatives who were arrested and for how long they would be detained," he said.
"Only after several weeks it was found out that they were arrested by the police and set free a few days later because of lack of evidence."
Lawyers in Taiwan, meanwhile, point out that their parliament has debated a law allowing the telephone tapping of foreigners if the intelligence services demand it. A court order is need to listen in on Taiwanese people.
The head of the association of jurists in Chad, Mahmat Hassan Abakar, said: "Governments like ours have never respected human rights with open hearts or spontaneously but only under the pressure of international opinion."
"When the pressure subsides, as is the case at the moment, there is no doubt there will be a new rise in human rights violations, above all when the bad example comes from the west, notably the United States," he said.