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19 March 2009 / Roger Smith
Issue: 7361 / Categories: Opinion , Human rights
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Fighting for liberty

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Roger Smith salutes two judicial superstars with impeccable human rights credentials

Mary Robinson may be the nearest that the law has to an international superstar. Thus, the former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was a good person for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) to pick as its President and one of its ambassadors for the release of its report on counterterrorism and human rights, Assessing Damage, Urging Action.

Ms Robinson was one of three authors of the report to launch it in London— after Geneva and before New York. The provisions of international human rights and humanitarian law, said the ICJ panel, were unchanged by whatever happened on 9/11. States must continue to pay heed to crucial issues such as the prohibition on torture. Above all, the jurists argued, use of the language of “war on terror” was misguided: the war paradigm encouraged abuse of human rights and the rule of law.

The report contained little which would not be expected from an international body representing judges and

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