World Justice Project on the Rule of Law and Terrorism

September 18, 2009

 

Since July 2008, Professor Nigel White and Katja Samuel of the School of Law have been partnered with the Club of Madrid (over 70 former heads of state from 50 countries committed to furthering democratic values worldwide) and Dr Silvia Casale (President of the UN Sub-Committee on the Prevention of Torture) in a multinational project which is examining the international rule of law framework in the context of tackling terrorism.  Specifically, the project is examining legal principles applicable to the capture, classification, extra-judicial killings, detention, torture, non-refoulement, and extraordinary renditions of suspected terrorists in peace time and during armed conflict.

 The project is being conducted under the umbrella of the World Justice Project (‘WJP'), a high-level, independent, multinational and multidisciplinary initiative to strengthen the rule of law worldwide, which has been endorsed by significant leaders from legal and non-legal disciplines in over 100 countries worldwide (www.worldjusticeproject.org).  One of the key intended outcomes of the project are practical, implementable recommendations to governments, reflected in the project's underpinning theme of how the security imperative may be accommodated within the rule of law.

 The project held its first, successful, workshop, at the University 4-5 June 2009 to identify and examine key legal principles.  The Law School was delighted to welcome a number of distinguished international experts including from the fields of international human rights law (Sir Nigel Rodley and Professor David Kretzmer, serving and former UK and Israeli members of the UN Human Rights Committee respectively; Jonathan Cooper, adviser to the ODIHR/OSCE; and Phil Shiner, Public Interest Lawyers; international humanitarian law (Jelena Pejic, ICRC Geneva; and Claire Clement, British Red Cross Society); international criminal law (Judge Adel Maged, Egytian Court of Cassation in Cairo; Dr Olympia Bekou, Nottingham University; and Dr Rod Rastan, International Criminal Court); refugee law (Dr Kees Wouters, Leiden University); senior military representatives (Captain Rupert Hollins Royal Navy, DCDC Shrivenham; Major General (ret'd) Tim Cross; and Commander Glenn Sulmasy US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard Academy); members of the police including from the North East Counter-Terrorism Unit; and Fernando Perpiñá-Robert, Secretary-General of the Club of Madrid.  The workshop was fantastically supported by the research team, largely masters students from the Utrecht-Sheffield LLM programme.