| International panel on terrorism and the law holds
hearings at Washington College of Law BY MIKE UNGER 
Photo by Jeff Watts
Panel members, from left, Arthur Chaskalson, Mary Robinson, and Georges Michel Abi-Saab Yesterday marked the five-year anniversary of that fateful day. As the planes slammed into the Twin Towers, tragically claiming the lives of thousands of innocent people, they changed reality as we knew it, plunging the world into an unprecedented war on terrorism. In the half-decade since, President Bush’s administration has used a plethora of controversial legal tools in its battle against Islamic extremists, simultaneously preventing another attack on American soil thus far while creating opposition and animosity among many who feel the administration is circumventing both domestic and international law.
Photo by Jeff Watts
Karen Mathis, president of the American Bar Association, testifying at WCL on Wednesday. |
Over the course of three days, the International Commission of Jurists’ Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, and Human Rights held hearings at the Washington College of Law (WCL) as part of its quest to determine the impact of both old and new counter-terrorism measures on human rights. “This is one of the most important issues of our time,” WCL dean Claudio Grossman said in his opening remarks Wednesday. “How to confront terrorism and [achieve] peace in a way that promotes full compliance [with] the rule of law.” The panel, comprising eight lawyers, judges, and scholars from around the world, also is exploring how counter-terrorism laws and policies can be effective and uphold the rule of law. WCL professor Robert Goldman is one of the panel’s members. “This is the first group to attempt a genuinely global inquiry into the nature of today’s terrorist threats and the responses of states to those threats,” Goldman said in a statement. “Through our hearings, the panel asks: are human rights and law and the law of war adequate to deal with terrorist threats? And, further, what are acceptable limits of counter-terrorism measures?” Among the experts exploring those issues during the opening session of the hearings was Karen Mathis, president of the American Bar Association. She shared with the panel the official position of her organization—with more than 400,000 members, it’s the largest voluntary bar association in the world—on controversial administration policies, such as the National Security Agency’s “domestic spying” program. “Our role changed on Sept. 11,” Mathis said. “Like all Americans, the ABA wants to give our government the power it needs to fight terrorism. But we have an obligation to ensure the very principles we promote abroad do not erode here at home.” The ABA believes the administration should have the right to eavesdrop on phone calls made to this country from Al Qaeda, but only within the framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, better known as FISA. “In prosecuting any war on terrorism we must not undermine the very liberties we are trying to protect,” Mathis said. “Respect for individual liberties is at the very heart of our democratic ideals. Our openness is a source of our strength, we should not look at it as a source of weakness.” Several witnesses Wednesday criticized the administration’s policy of detaining enemy combatants for an indefinite period of time. Others spoke out in opposition to torture. A key component of the debate is whether the war on terror actually is a War on Terror, or whether it is a matter to be handled by the domestic courts. The difference is critical; in each case, different legal standards apply. Bradford Berenson was associate council to President Bush from 2001 to 2003. He’s now a partner in the firm Sidley Austin. “The detention of terror suspects without charge and until the end of the conflict was considered by the administration to be within what the U.S. and the rest of the world has done in a war,” he said. “If there was one lesson of 9/11, it was that this was not simply a criminal act. This enemy is undeterrable by normal means. The importance of preventing mass acts of terror meant the criminal model wasn’t going to be sufficient. I believe the wartime framework is correct in a legal sense.” Whether or not the panel agrees is among the toughest decisions it must make. It is expected to conclude its initiative by April. |
