Fifth Meeting of the Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact CommitteeStrengthening the protection and promotion of human rights and the rule of law at the heart of the Counter-Terrorism Compact

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Statement by Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

28 August 2020

My dear Vladimir, colleagues and friends,

I am pleased to join this fifth meeting of the Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact, and I view this invitation as a sign of your enduring commitment to human rights and the rule of law, in our shared work to realize the UN’s Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

Many in this virtual room have done much to provide us with the building blocks for the UN’s counter-terrorism activity that is founded on human rights. I must congratulate you, Vladimir, for your success in steering the Global Compact in the reformed UN counter-terrorism architecture with the growing facilitating role of the Office of Counter-Terrorism, in enabling all entities to collaborate towards the realization of the Strategy.

The Global Compact and the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy constitute foundational documents for the UN’s counter-terrorism activities. Crucially, both share matching commitments to human rights at their very core.

But we are still some way from fully realizing these important principles. Although Member States have repeatedly committed to human rights in Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, this has not always translated into sufficient political support and practical action backed by infrastructure and resources.

The premise of the Compact is that grievances feed into violence and terrorism. Human rights measures enable States to act to address security challenges while respecting the dignity of each individual. For instance, in exceptional circumstances, people considered to pose a present, direct and imperative threat to security may be detained – but the burden of proof is on the State, to show that the individual poses such a threat, and that it cannot be addressed by alternative measures.

Human rights principles also prohibit the use of torture against anyone, under all circumstances.  These are important, actionable tenets of a counter-terrorism approach that respects human rights. 

To assist States in countering terrorism, we must do more to ensure that human rights are central to all our technical, advisory, and capacity-building activities. If human rights are truly to be the fundamental basis for all counter-terrorism efforts, all programmes and support to Member States should be drawn up and implemented with clear awareness of the human rights risks endemic to counter-terrorism work; they should be driven by a human rights diagnosis of the specific problems of each area; and their design, implementation, and projected outcomes should integrate human rights goals and considerations.

In supporting States to meet the complex and challenging issues in this area—including the use of new technologies and artificial intelligence; the repatriation of foreign fighters and their families; and support to security forces and prosecutors— it is essential that we show them how human rights principles benefits them.

Our pioneering and challenging work to increase human rights compliance by the G5 Sahel Joint Force security forces is an example of this.  Another example is the collaboration with UNICEF, OCT and others on setting up an initiative to help States ensure that the repatriation, prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration of foreign fighters and their families is grounded in human rights. In Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, we promote due process by observing trials and engaging with the authorities on legislative frameworks, detention, and justice.

Persuading various State entities to adjust practices that often stem from bitter experiences can be a momentous task. This should be done to put a country on the path of stability. On these and other key issues, joint work by all of us can be decisive. When counter-terrorism experts and human rights experts act together to advocate due process and a principled and impartial rule of law, we are promoting more effective counter-terrorism measures – and greater stability for the country.

A main concern in many countries is the use of anti-terrorism frameworks to stifle the work of human rights defenders. This is an area where we can join hands and establish a joint concrete program.

The Secretary-General's Call to Action on Human Rights that USG Voronkov mentioned earlier highlights this essential role played by international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law in countering terrorism and preventing conflict. I am keen to see how Global Compact and its constituent entities can contribute to its realization. The year ahead will be crucial, as we lead up to the postponed review the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.  As we embark on this endeavour, we must encourage Member States for political support at the review and a roadmap for State and UN efforts that has human rights at its core.

We need to be able to leverage the coordinated efforts of the entire UN team – and Member States. At the same time, we also must be careful to ensure that we are heading in the same direction, that we are coordinating our efforts and are complementary, not contradictory. When terrorism and counter-terrorism become a polarizing political frame, this can lead to damaging downstream effects, including heavily securitized responses that directly impact human rights, refugee protection, peace-building, humanitarian and development efforts. Knock-on effects deepen grievances – and can fuel support for terrorist groups. We may also risk missing important nuances in our understanding of the causes of crises, which could inform a more effective and comprehensive response.

As Compact entities, we have an important responsibility to maintain a complex but evidence-based focus – resisting the temptation to see the world through a simplistic binary lens. The more effective approach should avoid excessively prioritizing important, but often short-term, solely securitized responses over longer-term and deeper change that addresses governance, marginalization, and root causes. The first pillar of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy includes marginalization, discrimination, lack of the rule of law, and other violations of human rights among the key conditions conducive to terrorism and violent extremism. This emphasis on prevention makes it clear that counter-terrorism efforts must be complementary and in service of the Secretary-General’s wider prevention agenda.

The COVID-19 pandemic is deepening the challenges faced by every world leader, and by all of us. We have seen how crucial it is to have universal access to affordable health care and social protections. We have seen the lethal impact of inequalities and racial and ethnic discrimination against Afro-descendants, indigenous peoples, Dalits and other ethnic minorities.

Many Governments are responding by imposing even greater control on media freedoms, freedom of expression, and the right to privacy – criminalising criticism and drastically shrinking civic space. These are issues we are all familiar challenges with from the counter-terrorism context. As we all know, quashing dissent and limiting the people's voice can only drive grievances underground, where they will fester and grow.

Increasing repression, in a context of deep suffering which is exacerbated by pre-existing discrimination, could strengthen terrorist organizations' ability to seek out recruits and support.

This is a pivotal moment for many societies, and it is crucial that we make every effort to promote a more principled – and more effective – policy framework that can address core issues and avoid violence and conflict.

As the Secretary-General urged last week, "As we strive to overcome one crisis, we have an opening to steer our world onto a more sustainable path." I also share his recent analysis in his Nelson Mandela lecture that the pandemic has laid bare the inequalities and injustice that continue to plague the world, a failure to deal with some of the toxic legacies of the past that continue to be present with us, in order to build for a better future. We must rally to this cause of a world made new and help Member States seize the moment of this pandemic reset to address these core issues.

As Members of the Global Compact, we need to think boldly and bravely about how our work can better support a new global deal. We need to put human security at the centre and to rally behind a transformative agenda on counter-terrorism that tackles these security issues in the longer term. We need to ensure our work is fully coordinated, in line with a vision that sees all sides to the problem, rather than working in our silos of narrow expertise. We must rise to the challenge of this moment in time.

My colleagues and I look forward to more engagement with all of you, so that together, we can make these aspirations a reality, address the grave crises and conflicts of our times, integrating human rights throughout all policy and activities, in service of a global consensus built on equality, justice, and participation.

Thank you.