579 research outputs found
The quest for absolution and immunity
No full text© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Elspeth Guild, Didier Bigo and Mark Gibney; individual chapters, the contributors. The 2002–2009 US government’s global kidnap, secret detention programme and the use of so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ during the period of secret detention has been largely discussed and detailed since it was revealed. The impressive list of documents and data, as well as internal and public justifications used by the Bush administration to cover one of the United States’ most controversial and noxious operations, have been thoroughly disclosed and analysed not only by NGOs and investigative journalists but also through European and American official inquiries and academic research networks such as the George Washington University’s National Security Archive and the UK Economic and Social Research Council-funded collaborative Rendition Project. Amidst the disturbing discovery of such a secretive CIA-led extraordinary rendition and detention programme, the controversy around whether or not enhanced interrogation techniques constitute cases of torture, as defined by international law, rapidly became a very heated and central topic among human rights legal practitioners and scholars
Still not resolved? Constitutional challenges to the European arrest warrant: A look at challenges ahead after the lessons learned from the past
No full textThe Social Impact of Migration and the Notion of Citizenship for the EU. Ensuing challenges and opportunities for the Union. CEPS Commentaries, 13 March 2014
No full textDocumenting the unwelcoming treatment extended by government officials to the poorest EU citizens from other member states, including denying them their EU rights, Elspeth Guild censures these officials for shattering the principle of equality of citizens and of disaggregating Europe into nationals of the member states who can be treated differently simply on the basis of their origins
Democratic oversight and the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme in Europe
No full textOne of the many findings that the inquiry about the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme has revealed is that the Agency – when almost obliged to delocalize detainees from US bases abroad following the Pentagon’s reluctance to continue such a programme – had carefully chosen its partners over the world on the criteria of absence of accountability and effective oversight of these specific services by their national authorities. They have been more successful than NGOs in ranking secret services in Europe (and beyond) that have the worst practices in terms of human rights records and those that have potential to betray their own politicians when US national security interests are at stake. It has been suggested by many academics, after operation Stay Behind and the follow-up Gladio, that some secret services in Europe were ready, if given specific rewards in terms of money and technology, to consider their loyalty to the “big brother” of the US as more important for the security of the West than their loyalty and strict obedience to their own national governments, especially if these were not in alignment with US and NATO official positions
Democratic oversight and the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme in Europe
No full textOne of the many findings that the inquiry about the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme has revealed is that the Agency – when almost obliged to delocalize detainees from US bases abroad following the Pentagon’s reluctance to continue such a programme – had carefully chosen its partners over the world on the criteria of absence of accountability and effective oversight of these specific services by their national authorities. They have been more successful than NGOs in ranking secret services in Europe (and beyond) that have the worst practices in terms of human rights records and those that have potential to betray their own politicians when US national security interests are at stake. It has been suggested by many academics, after operation Stay Behind and the follow-up Gladio, that some secret services in Europe were ready, if given specific rewards in terms of money and technology, to consider their loyalty to the “big brother” of the US as more important for the security of the West than their loyalty and strict obedience to their own national governments, especially if these were not in alignment with US and NATO official positions
La mise à l'écart des étrangers. (1/2)
No full textSouvent présenté comme un simple instrument technique facilitant la libre circulation des individus à l'intérieur de l'espace Schengen, le visa est en fait un moyen de discriminer entre les ressortissants de certains pays non soumis à visa, et ceux obligés de faire la preuve au consulat qu'ils ne sont pas indésirables. la police des étrangers se fait dés lors de moins en moins aux frontières, par des policiers, et de plus en plus en amont, à distance, dans les pays d'origine. A cette situation s'ajoute la non-harmonisation des modalités d'attribution des visas au sein même de l'U.E. Often presented as a mere technical tool facilitating the free circulation of individuals within the Schengen space, the visa is in fact a means of discrimination between nationals from countries not covered by the visa, and nationals obliged to prove at consulates that they are not unwanted. The policing of immigrants is hence now less and less carried out at borders by policemen or border guards. It is more often carried out before the borders are reached, at a distance, in the country of origin by consular agents and attachés of internal security. European collaboration was to harmonise the rules governing the attribution of the visa. But the non-coincidence between the Schengen space and the European Union, the power struggles between the member states and the European Commission, but also differing legal interpretations, produce adverse effects. Indeed, the quest for unity as well as for a clear demarcation between the inside and the outside allowing for an efficient management of migration seems to be a failure. The result is a heterogeneous device, varying locally depending on the practices of local consulates. Through the latter, exchanges of information on individuals flow through an astonishing legal void that does not provide for the protection of the liberties of visa applicants
Global Data Transfers: The Human Rights Implications. INEX Policy Brief No. 9, May 2010
No full textWe live in a world where global data transfers are presented as a norm; just part of life. It is when the individual’s right to privacy is overridden by the state’s appreciation of a need to know about that individual that problems arise. In this Policy Brief of the Justice & Home Affairs INEX series, CEPS Senior Research Fellow Elspeth Guild considers such questions as: what are the principles of privacy? What is necessary in a democratic society and what is the role of supranational and national courts in determining the meaning of privacy, and for whom
The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security: Mid-Term Report on the Results of the CHALLENGE Project. CEPS CHALLENGE Paper, No. 4, 14 February 2007
No full textThe CHALLENGE project responds to widespread concerns about the resort to specific illiberal practices by contemporary liberal regimes. These practices are linked with the identification of increasing insecurities globally, insecurities that are widely interpreted as obliging sterner policies from the authorities and, consequently, new constraints on principles of liberty under law and presumptions about the innocence of individuals. Specifically, the project examines tensions created by claims that ‘security is the first freedom’ and that a new ‘balance’ has to be established to manage the global scale of contemporary dangers. The project focuses on the justification of these policies and constraints on grounds of emergency, necessity and prevention in a radically transformed global environment, and the impact these policies have on civil liberties, political rights and social cohesion
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
No full textThis book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice.
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ
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