The international war for Human Rights (From a legal perspective)

Once in a university exam I was asked to explain what Mr. Ito (International Law expert) wanted to mean by saying that “If we destroy Human Rights and rule of law in the response to terrorism, they have won”. It was particularly a phrase that caught my attention with quite interest. Those words meant that terrorism is searching the end of Human Rights and the rule of law –Particularly the relative new international terrorism-, as it wants to achieve its goals with the use of force, violence and threat. And if we get rid of both incredible legal achievements ourselves, we are going to perpetuate just exactly what they want us to do.

In addition, even though this issue comes from a legal framework, there is a philosophical thought that interferes in this debate: is the end more worthy than the means? Definitely it is not, because it is precisely the fight for protecting Human Rights and the rule of law what fighting terrorism is. It would be a nonsense, that while we want to protect those legal achievements, for the sake of ending terrorism we would destroy what we want to protect. Then, why the instinctive reaction of governments in front of a terrorist attack is to announce a legal reduction of our freedoms knowingly that it doesn’t stop terrorists? Telling people that total security in our world is possible by reducing our freedoms is a very big lie, and serves as an excuse for governments to not tackle the base problems that generate this terrorism. How long are we going to ignore social exclusion problems, existing racism in Europe, underdevelopment and economic domination over other regions?

Furthermore, there is another argument that gives the reason to Ito without many possible discussions. This argument is about the differences between terrorism, and us. We are both parties of a conflict, and we think that we’ve got the reason because we use both legal rights chart and the main principle of the rule of law. Therefore, if we think that Human Rights and the rule of law makes us the “good” party as we maintain human dignity and the peaceful settlement of conflicts; getting rid of both things will leave us without any reason to fight against the use of force (Although extreme cases like ISIS leave little room for anything else than military action). Then we would have become just like the terrorists, having our own objectives (winning the others), considering that our end is more worthy than the means.

It would be that day, when war against terrorism would be won by them, as we crush under our feet what it gives us the main reason for defending our positions.