Judicial Review Rights And National Security Microform The Balancing Act

The primary aim of this study as a whole is to examine how useful a safeguard the Convention is, and can be, in the sensitive area of national security law and practice. The first part of the book consists of an examination of the national security concept generally in the Convention and the context of national security concerns in European states. The second part of the book is devoted to detailed studies of secret surveillance and security data registers, both of the court and commission's case law and of national laws in the field. The third part of the book consists of an article-by-article analysis of the case law of the commission and the court dealing with national security. The book is of interest to academics, practising lawyers and legislators interested in human rights and national security issues.

Eavesdropping on the phone calls of U.S. citizens; demands by the FBI for records of library borrowings; establishment of military tribunals to try suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens--many of the measures taken by the Bush administration since 9/11 have sparked heated protests. In Not a Suicide Pact, Judge Richard A. Posner offers a cogent and elegant response to these protests, arguing that personal liberty must be balanced with public safety in the face of grave national danger. Critical of civil libertarians who balk at any curtailment of their rights, even in the face of an unprecedented terrorist threat in an era of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Posner takes a fresh look at the most important constitutional issues that have arisen since 9/11. These issues include the constitutional rights of terrorist suspects (whether American citizens or not) to habeas corpus and due process, and their rights against brutal interrogation (including torture) and searches based on less than probable cause. Posner argues that terrorist activity is sui generis--it is neither "war" nor "crime"--and it demands a tailored response, one that gives terror suspects fewer constitutional rights than persons suspected of ordinary criminal activity. Constitutional law must remain fluid, protean, and responsive to the pressure of contemporary events. Posner stresses the limits of law in regulating national security measures and underscores the paradoxical need to recognize a category of government conduct that is at once illegal and morally obligatory. One of America's top legal thinkers, Posner does not pull punches. He offers readers a short, sharp book with a strong point of view that is certain to generate much debate. OXFORD'S NEW INALIENABLE RIGHTS SERIES This is inaugural volume in Oxford's new fourteen-book Inalienable Rights Series. Each book will be a short, analytically sharp exploration of a particular right--to bear arms, to religious freedom, to free speech--clarifying the issues swirling around these rights and challenging us to rethink our most cherished freedoms.

In Terror in the Balance, Posner and Vermeule take on civil libertarians of both the left and the right, arguing that the government should be given wide latitude to adjust policy and liberties in the times of emergency. They emphasize the virtues of unilateral executive actions and argue for making extensive powers available to the executive as warranted. At a time when the 'struggle against violent extremism' dominates the United States' agenda, this important and controversial work will spark discussion in the classroom and intellectual press alike.

International human rights adjudicators, while facing urgent cases, have used provisional measures in order to prevent irreparable harm, e.g. to order States to halt an expulsion, the execution of a death sentence, the destruction of the natural habitat, as well as to ensure access to health care in detention or protection against death threats. In the practice of the various adjudicators, the traditional concept of provisional measures has undergone a process of humanization. Preventing Irreparable Harm addresses the question of how such provisional measures can be made as persuasive as possible. Apart from the Inter-American Court, none of the human rights adjudicators motivate or publish their provisional measures. Yet the book analyzes their best practices and obstacles, determines the underlying rationale for their use of provisional measures, and establishes the core of the concept of provisional measures that all adjudicators have in common. It argues that clarity - on what belongs to the core of the concept and on what does not belong to the concept at all - enhances the persuasive force of provisional measures. The practices of the international adjudicators that are made accessible in this book will prove useful in the ongoing cross-fertilization that occurs among these adjudicators. Moreover, the analysis provided allows individual victims, their counsel, NGOs, as well as international institutions, to address more effectively urgent human rights cases.