Security and Human Rights
The Unit was established in 2009 by Professor Nigel White, building on the work done by the Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights Unit (2006-2009) led by Dr Daniel Moeckli. Its aim is to undertake research into the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law and current issues of security such as the threat of terrorism, the rise of private military security contractors and the changes to peacekeeping and other peace operations. The Unit will produce academic publications and policy documents on these issues and is available to undertake specific research projects at the request of governments, non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations, as well as conduct training courses in human rights and humanitarian law for military and security services.
Projects
Private Military and Security Contractors (PMSCs) and Human Rights Law: This project investigates the regulation and accountability of PMSCs, as well as States and organisations employing or hosting PMSCs, under human rights law and international humanitarian law.
The Unit has recently participated in a consortium of seven European universities, funded under a grant provided by the European Union within the seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for research and development, to consider the issue of European regulation of PMSCs (Priv-War project). This culminated in the consortium (including Professor Nigel White and Dr Aris Georgopoulos from Nottingham) presenting their recommendations on). This culminated in the consortium (including Professor Nigel White and Dr Aris Georgopoulos from Nottingham) presenting their recommendations on European Regulation of PMSCs to members of the European Commission, European Parliament, EU member states, representatives of Iraq, Afghanistan, the AU, the UN, the US, the industry and NGOs at the European Commission, Brussels, in April 2011.
The Unit’s contribution to Priv-War was managed by Kerry Senior (a Ph.D student in the School of Law).
The main publications emerging from the project are War by Contract, edited by Francesco Francioni and Natalino Ronzitti and published by Oxford University Press in 2011; and Multi-Level Regulation of Private Military and Security Contractors, edited by Christine Bakker and Mirko Sossai and published by Hart in 2012.
Written submissions were also made to the UK Foreign Office’s consultation on the regulation of PMSCs and the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in 2009. Discussions have been had in 2010-11 with members of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, a body which has drafted a convention to regulate the activities of PMSCs, currently before the Human Rights Council.
In 2011 Professor White presented papers on current international initiatives to regulate PMSCs at conferences in New York (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) and at King’s College London (Department of War Studies), both of which involved industry representatives as well as those of government and civil society. The Unit will continue to develop this area, by, for example, examining the role of PMSCs in counter-terrorism activities such as rendition, detention and intelligence gathering.
Security and Human Rights before UK Courts: This project identifies, summarises and analyses significant cases that are decided by UK courts, raising matters of human rights law and security (e.g. the Al-Jedda case decided by the House of Lords in 2007). The data collected will be used for a variety of research projects, including: a) contributing to the Oxford Reports on International Law before Domestic Courts (ILDC) - Professor White and Professor Mary Footer are co-editors of the UK's entries to this database; b) the World Justice Project (see below); c) further research projects on the national implementation of human rights norms in the face of security threats.
Christy Shucksmith (a PhD student in the School of Law) help co-ordinate the UK’s contribution to ILDC.
World Justice Project (WJP) on the Rule of Law and Counter-Terrorism: This multinational, multidisciplinary research project examines how domestic, regional, and multilateral security imperatives may be accommodated within rather than erode the rule of law in the context of counter-terrorism. This is under the overall umbrella of the WJP, a multinational, multidisciplinary, and independent initiative to strengthen the rule of law worldwide, currently engaged in approximately 17 disciplines and with over 100 countries (http://worldjusticeproject.org/).
The project is co-directed by Dr Katja Samuel (also the project manager) and Professor Nigel White at Nottingham University. Its partners are the Club of Madrid (82 former heads of state from 51 countries committed to furthering democratic values worldwide - http://www.clubmadrid.org/); Dr Silvia Casale (formerly President of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, and of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture); and Professor Ana María Salinas de Friás, Malaga University, Spain.
The 42 contributing experts draw together judicial, practitioner, policy-making, institutional, (inter)governmental, academic, policing, military, and civil society perspectives and expertise from around the world.
The project’s key objectives include the examination, clarification, normative development, and making recommendations regarding the implementation of key rule of law principles underpinning the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy – especially international humanitarian, human rights, refugee, and criminal law. More specifically, the topics and themes examined by the project include: governmental and non-governmental impunity; strengthening accountability; regional and international judicial and non-judicial control mechanisms; terrorist classification; battlefield administration and treatment of detainees; extraordinary rendition; extra-judicial killings; intelligence gathering, including interrogation methods; discrimination; non-refoulement, and reparation of victims ((both of terrorist attacks and of security imperative responses).
Aimed especially at governmental and intergovernmental legal and non-legal practitioners and policy-makers on counter-terrorism, the project is very solution orientated. Consequently, its 120+ recommendations seek to strengthen the legal framework in practice, including by suggesting how current (perceived) lacunae may be addressed, and by identifying best practices which may be transferrable to other national/ regional jurisdictions.
To date, the project has received funding from inter alia the WJP; the International Bar Association; the regional governmental authorities of Cantabria, Spain; Venable LLP; the University of Sheffield; and the University of Nottingham.
To date, it has three core outputs:
- a comprehensive edited collection of 1200 pages, to which Her Excellency Mary Robinson has written the foreword: A M Salinas de Friás, KLH Samuel and ND White (eds), Counter-Terrorism: International Law and Practice (Oxford University Press, January 2012).
- an executive report of the project’s key findings and recommendations, which seeks to capture wider observations, and to summarise key findings and recommendations of this three year multi-national, multi-disciplinary project, regarding what the rule of law means in the context of counter-terrorism. Please follow this link to download the World Justice Project Counter-Terrorism Expert Network Report of Key Findings and Recommendations on the Rule of Law and Counter-Terrorism.
- the World Justice Project Counter-Terrorism Expert Network (WJP CT Network)
Training Courses: The Human Rights Law Centre and the School of Law organise an annual Law of Armed Conflict Course (LOAC), attended by members of the British Army Legal Services and Royal Air Force Legal The course provides them with training in international humanitarian law, human rights law and peacekeeping law. This enables the participants, who are all qualified lawyers, to advise on and apply such laws while on active service overseas. The course has been run annually since 1996, and this year is taught by Professor Nigel White from the School of Law at the University of Nottingham and Professor Robert Cryer from the Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham, plus guest speakers. The course is open to suitably qualified lawyers from other countries – in previous courses British military lawyers have been joined by military lawyers from Trinidad, Australia, the Netherlands and the United States.
People
Unit Head: Professor Nigel White
Core Team: Dr Katja Samuel, Kerry Senior, Christy Shucksmith, Lydia Davies-Bright, Alexandra Bohm
Numerous Student Research Assistants contribute to the Unit's projects.
Professor Nigel White is an expert in Public International Law including human rights law, and a specialist in peacekeeping, the law of armed conflict, the law relating to terrorism, and the law relating to the regulation of private military and security contractors. He has offered advice to legal teams involved in high profile cases involving security issues and human rights, the UNHCHR on the training of peackeepers in human rights law, has run training courses on the law of armed conflict and human rights law for the British Army Legal Services for a number of years, and has directed projects funded and supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the European Commission, the Nuffield Foundation, the Club of Madrid and the World Justice Project. He has given evidence to a number of different Parliamentary Committees.
He is co-editor of the Journal of Conflict and Security Law, which contains numerous articles addressing human rights and humanitarian law in situations of armed conflict, states of emergency, and pre- and post-conflict situations. His recent books include Democracy Goes to War: British Military Deployments under International Law (Oxford University Press, 2009); The Law of International Organisations (Manchester University Press, 2005); The United Nations System: Toward International Justice (Lynne Rienner, 2002); and Keeping the Peace: The United Nations and the Maintenance of International Peace and Security (Manchester University Press, 1997). In addition he has co-authored 4 books, edited and co-edited 6 others, and published over 60 articles and essays.
Dr Katja Samuel is a barrister who specialises in counter-terrorism, armed conflict, collective security, international human rights, and international criminal law. She is the project manager and co-director of the WJP rule of law and counter-terrorism project. In addition to the forthcoming WJP project book by OUP, other related publications include: KLH Samuel and ND White (eds), Counter-Terrorism and International Law, International Law of Peace and Security Series (Ashgate, 2012, forthcoming); and KLH Samuel, The OIC, the UN, and Counter-Terrorism Law-Making: Conflicting or Cooperative Legal Orders (Hart, 2012, forthcoming). Previously, she served for 12 years in the UK’s Royal Navy, both deployed at sea in different operational theatres as well as in the capacity of a legal adviser. She has travelled widely, including to post-conflict regions as a volunteer trauma counsellor and trainer; and has experienced first hand the effects of terrorism in several regions of the world.
Publications
Publications include:
Nigel White, Democracy Goes to War: British Military Deployments under International Law (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Paul Cardwell, Duncan French and Nigel White, 'The Kadi Case Before the European Court of Justice' (2009) 58 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 229-240
Nigel White, 'Peace Operations' in V. Chetail (ed.), Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: a Lexicon (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Journal of Conflict and Security Law: Published by Oxford University Press since 2000 and entering its 17th year, this journal includes significant coverage of human rights and humanitarian law in armed conflict, states of emergency and pre- and post-conflict situations. It is co-edited by Nigel White (Nottingham), Robert Cryer (Birmingham) and Eric Myjer (Utrecht). Research assistance is provided by Alexandra Bohm (a PhD student at Sheffield) and Lydia Davies-Bright (a PhD student at Nottingham).