Albinfo/Wikimedia Commons>
17 November 2020
At an expert meeting – online due to the COVID19 pandemic – leading international humanitarian and human rights legal scholars, social scientists, and practitioners discussed the legal, scientific, and practical aspects of counterterrorism measures, with a focus on their effectiveness, side effects, and legality.
Organized by the Counter-Terror Pro LegEm Project and the Geneva Academy, the meeting examined the effectiveness of measures to prevent and counter terrorism – closure of places of worship, vague prohibitions of ‘glorification of terrorism’, stop-and-search operations – and their impact on human rights.
‘To determine the legality, necessity, and proportionality of these measures under international human rights law, it is useful to evaluate their effectiveness and potential side-effects using social science methods and research on terrorism and violent extremism. This is precisely what we’ve done during this meeting’ underlines Professor Gloria Gaggioli, Director of the Geneva Academy.
The meeting’s findings will be synthesized and used to draft a policy guidance document on how to devise and monitor counterterrorism measures to ensure their effectiveness and conformity with international human rights law.
Peggy Marco/Pixabay
Counter-Terror Pro LegEm is a four-year research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and led by our Director, Professor Gloria Gaggioli.
The project combines legal analysis with social science research to examine the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures and their effects on human rights. It also analyses the structure of terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda or the Islamic State and sees whether they qualify as ‘organized armed groups’ for the purpose of international humanitarian law.
The project’s outputs will include an empirical analysis of contemporary counter-terrorism measures with a thorough legal analysis under human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as the above-mentioned policy guidance for states and international organizations.
Pavlofox/Pixabay
Pixabay
Geneva Academy
The Geneva Human Rights Platform hosted an expert roundtable with the theme 'Opportunities for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Human Rights Monitoring.'
Adobe
Our new research brief examines the complex relationship between digital technologies and their misuse in surveillance, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns.
ICRC
Co-hosted with the ICRC, this event aims to enhance the capacity of academics to teach and research international humanitarian law, while also equipping policymakers with an in-depth understanding of ongoing legal debates.
ICRC
Participants in this training course will gain practical insights into UN human rights mechanisms and their role in environmental protection and learn about how to address the interplay between international human rights and environmental law, and explore environmental litigation paths.
Participants in this training course will be introduced to the major international and regional instruments for the promotion of human rights, as well as international environmental law and its implementation and enforcement mechanisms.
UN Photo/Violaine Martin
The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy