Fittex
CIA renditions and secret detention programme
The CIA's extraordinary rendition and secret detention programme has again come under the scrutiny of the European Parliament, which will ask the Commission and the Council during the June plenary about the measures taken to implement Parliament's recommendations on the matter.
A Quest for Accountability? EU and Member State Inquiries into the CIA Rendition and Secret Detention Programme
At the request of the LIBE Committee, this study assesses the extent to which EU Member States have delivered accountability for their complicity in the US CIA-led extraordinary rendition and secret detention programme and its serious human rights violations. It offers a scoreboard of political inquiries and judicial investigations in supranational and national arenas in relation to Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom. The study takes as a starting point two recent and far-reaching ...
US policy to bring terrorists to justice
US counter-terrorism strategy continues to be at the centre of public attention, with the recent drone strike, killing Yemeni al Quaeda leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi on 16 June 2015. The US government relies on a wide range of tools, inter alia intelligence, law enforcement and foreign policy. US measures to bring terrorists to justice are still being debated and slowly redefined, primarily through court rulings assessing their compatibility with US constitutional law. The United States' criminal ...
'Foreign fighters' - Member States' responses and EU action in an international context
As the hostilities in Syria and Iraq continue and terrorism activities worldwide seem to be on the rise, EU Member States are increasingly confronted with the problem of aspiring and returning 'foreign fighters'. Whereas the phenomenon is not new, its scale certainly is, which explains the wide perception of these individuals as a serious threat to the security of both individual Member States and the EU as a whole. The problem has been addressed within international fora including the United Nations ...
National Security and Secret Evidence in Legislation and before the Courts: Exploring the Challenges
At the request of the LIBE committee, this study provides a comparative analysis of the national legal regimes and practices governing the use of intelligence information as evidence in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. It explores notably how national security can be invoked to determine the classification of information and evidence as 'state secrets' in court proceedings and whether such laws and practices are fundamental rights- and rule of law-compliant ...
National Programme for Mass Surveillance of Personal Data in EU Member States and their Compatibility with EU Law
In the wake of the disclosures surrounding PRISM and other US surveillance programmes, this study makes an assessment of the large-scale surveillance practices by a selection of EU member states: the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Given the large-scale nature of surveillance practices at stake, which represent a reconfiguration of traditional intelligence gathering, the study contends that an analysis of European surveillance programmes cannot be reduced to a question of balance ...
Impact of surveillance programmes on EU citizen's rights to privacy
On 6 June 2013, articles in the Guardian and Washington Post based on information from former US National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden stoked up the debate on internet data surveillance. Further allegations that US and UK intelligence agencies had accessed and stored large quantities of data followed.
Creating Accountability? Recent Developments in the US's Policy on Drones
In recent weeks, the debate on the US use of drones in its counter-terrorism operations has intensified. The confirmation of John O. Brennan as the director of CIA — and the much-reported filibuster that interrupted his hearing and focused attention on the issue of drones — has led to a push for political and legal accountability. A recent ruling by the US Court of Appeals has supported the endeavour, and the US administration has invited the Congress to develop a legal framework for drone strikes ...
This note provides an assessment of the ‘state of play’ of European countries’ inquiries into the CIA’s programme of extraordinary renditions and secret detentions in light of the new legal framework and fundamental rights architecture that has emerged since the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force. It identifies a number of ‘EU law angles’ that indicate a high degree of proximity between the consequences of human rights violations arising from the alleged transportation and unlawful detention of ...
Extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects : the EU Member States' alleged assistance to the CIA
Following 9/11, the Bush Administration established an ""extraordinary rendition"" system, whereby terrorism suspects were transferred, secretly detained and interrogated outside the US. There has been growing evidence of EU Member States' (MS) collaboration with the US, allegedly including stopovers by US aircraft at European airports and the setting up of secret detention sites in three MS. This would arguably amount to serious violations of international human rights law. The European Parliament ...