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Terror in the UK

July 18, 2005 at 8:15pm By: Mr. T Posted in Mr. T's Den

For those of you familiar with the law review world, you know that the journals pick up the hot topics of the day. When I was a former law review editor but a mere three and a half years ago, I must have reviewed dozens of articles on the then hot topics – Bush v. Gore, Napster, the debate over China’s accession to the WTO, the SCOTUS boy scout’s homosexuality discrimination case, etc. A few years ago while doing research on European human rights law, I picked up on a neglected area of research – the European Convention on Human Rights – and specifically how it relates to the UK’s human rights law in regards to actions taken against terrorists, real and alleged, with cases like McCann and Others vs the UK, Brogan and Others vs the UK, and others, focusing mainly on the UK’s war against the IRA.

Earlier this year, I co-wrote a short case brief with some very motivated UNL students on the Al-Skeini decision, involving the alleged detention and murder of an Iraqi civilian in Basra by UK soldiers, in which the High Court of England and Wales ruled early this year against the UK for violations of the European Convention, which the UK has adopted almost wholesale into its domestic law. Our article focuses on the extraterritorial reach of the ECHR and how it applies specifically to the UK in light of its intervention in Iraq and membership in the Council of Europe. In the article I analyzed other key ECHR extraterritoriality cases and how they related to Al-Skeini, specifically the Cyprus cases (Turkish military occupation of Northern Cyprus), the Bankovic case (NATO intervention in Yugoslavia) and the Ocalan case (Turkish abduction of a Kurdish leader in Kenya’s internatio
nal airport). 

Following the G-8 transit system bombings earlier this month, I have since been contacted again by journals asking me about this piece’s availability – which is no longer available since I accepted publication from another journal this spring. It is a sad commentary how the recent tragic events in the UK have spurred interest in this important facet of international law. In anycase, I am currently looking for advice/insight on updating my article before it goes to printing this fall. Comments are welcome on policy and law recommendations and predictions, as well as general discussion on this topic.

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