26 and 27 February 2024
The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights published the report ‘Promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism’ in 2019. The report looks into the role of “soft law” and new institutions in the creation, enforcement, oversight and regulation of counterterrorism measures.
With increased attention to international human rights laws compliance, the GCTF Co-Chair, the European Union (EU) launched the Initiative on Oversight and Accountability in Counterterrorism, implemented by the GCTF-Inspired Institution, the International Institute for Justice and Rule of Law (IIJ) and EU facility: Platform for Human Rights Engagement (CT PHARE), at the Twenty-Second Coordinating Committee Meeting in New York in September 2023. The Initiative aims to enhance engagement and compliance with international human rights, address gaps and vulnerabilities in national responses to human rights violations across the regions, and enhance collaboration at the transregional level.
At the meeting, deliberations took place to inform an anticipated set of GCTF non-binding, practical and publicly available policy recommendations for practitioners and policymakers to use, to help strengthen counterterrorism capabilities, national strategies and action plans with regards to oversight and accountability of human rights in counterterrorism. This meeting was organized on the margins of the Twenty-Third GCTF Coordinating Committee Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya and brought together experts and representatives for a transregional exchange building on a series of regional consultations in the Middle East and North Africa, West, East, and South Africa, and South Asia regions.