Summary

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, follows up on the 2010 joint study on global practices in relation to secret detention in the context of countering terrorism.

In the present report, she illuminates the abject failure to implement the recommendations contained in the joint study, with tragic and profound consequences for individuals who were systematically tortured, rendered across borders, arbitrarily detained and deprived of their most fundamental rights. Over two decades of impunity have followed from the events that led to the study. Building upon and complementing the work of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, in the present report the Special Rapporteur reiterates the demand that accountability, reparation and transparency be implemented by those States responsible for these grave human rights violations. Failure to implement the recommendations made by the special procedures mechanisms in 2010 has enabled and facilitated ongoing human rights violations in the name of countering terrorism around the globe. New modalities of transfer across borders have since developed, circumventing required legal protections, including non-refoulement. Mass detention without legal process has been normalized by certain States, and exceptionality in trial process involving charges of terrorism remains entrenched. Reversing these trends requires a renewed commitment to fundamental human rights protections while countering terrorism, exposing the persistent misuse of counter-terrorism measures for over two decades, addressing impunity and providing adequate remedy to those who have been harmed.