Challenges to Human Rights in the Context of Terrorism and Counter Terrorism

Today, both the world at large and India in particular, face daunting challenges in the task of protecting human rights of common people regardless of the country they belong to. No country in the world can be said to be free from the threat of terrorism. Terrorism presents a global threat to democracy, the rule of law, human rights, peace and security. It also constitutes an attack on mankind's most fundamental value; the right to a life lived in peace, freedom and dignity. Security of the individual is a basic human right and the protection of individual is, accordingly, a fundamental obligation of Government. States therefore have an obligation to ensure the human rights of their citizens and others. In recent years, however the measures adopted by Governments to counter terrorism have themselves often posed serious challenges to human rights. Terrorism substantially diminishes government's respect for fundamental human rights such as absence of extrajudicial killings; political imprisonment and torture. To some extent, civil rights are also restricted as a consequence of terrorism. Therefore, both terrorism and counter-terrorism efforts affect the enjoyment of human rights. The purpose of paper is to analyse how the terrorism and counter terrorism measures taken by States are posing a serious challenges before human rights and human security in India as well as rest of the world.