Acts of terror on a global scale have strained the legal systems of modern democracies to the breaking point. In unequalled breadth and depth, this book studies the fundamentals of due process guarantees as they apply to this unique challenge and the challengers. To this end, the Author analyzes the rights of persons suspected of a crime from the pre-trial phase to the trial and the post-trial period under all universal and regional human rights treaty regimes, in times of normalcy and in times of emergency, pertinent customary international law and general principles of law, as well as international humanitarian law and the hybrid procedures developed by international criminal tribunals.
The book proceeds to present the United States’ due process guarantees both in peacetime and in war, and its responses to the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 in its executive, legislative and judicial branches. It offers an appraisal of those actions in light of the due process guarantees of international law as they apply to measures of counter-terrorism, and it suggests courses of action designed to preserve a public order of human dignity.
