About the Book

This timely book explores the extent to which national security has affected the intersection between human rights and the exercise of state power. It examines how liberal democracies, long viewed as the proponents and protectors of human rights, have transformed their use of human rights on the global stage, externalizing their own internal agendas.

Contextualizing human rights goals, structures and challenges in the immediate post-UDHR era, key chapters analyse the role that national security has played in driving competition between individual rights and rhetoric-laden, democracy-reinforcing approaches to collective rights of security. Internationally diverse authors offer evocative insights into the ways in which law is used to manipulate both intra and interstate relationships, and demonstrate the constant tensions raised by a human rights system that is fundamentally state-centric though defined by individuals' needs and demands. Acknowledging the challenges in contemporary human rights practice, policy and discourse as features of transitional eras in human rights, this forward-thinking book identifies opportunities to correct past inadequacies and promote a stronger system for the future.

This is a hard-hitting and much needed study for students and scholars of human rights, security law, constitutional law and international relations more widely. Its practical dimensions will also greatly benefit practitioners in the field.

Table of Contents:
Contents: 1 Human rights, liberal democracies and challenges of national security 1 Kasey McCall-Smith, Andrea Birdsall and Elisenda Casanas Adam PART I HUMAN RIGHTS TRANSITIONS – THEORETICAL DEBATES AND DOCTRINAL CHALLENGES 2 Key challenges to human rights in democracies at a time of transition: Where to now? 16 Francesca Klug 3 The forgotten principle of fraternité : Re-interpreting the last three articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 41 Yota Negishi 4 Human rights protection and state capacity: The doctrinal implications of the statist character of international human rights law 64 Mátyás Bódig PART II CO-OPTION AND EJECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES 5 US counterterrorism and the denial of fundamental rights from torture to fair trial 90 Kasey McCall-Smith 6 Counterterrorism and challenges to human rights: Justifying drones and targeted killing as acts of self-defence 116 Andrea Birdsall 7 The alleged backlash against human rights: Evidence from Denmark and the UK 139 Jacques Hartmann and Samuel White PART III HUMAN RIGHTS AND NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES BEYOND THE STATE 8 Surveillance measures and the exception of national security in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights 165 Pierre Notermans 9 Constructing a right to counterterrorism: Law, politics and the Security Council 189 Vivek Bhatt 10 Non-state actors that aspire to be states: White spots on the international human rights protection map? 216 Linda Hamid 11 Reflections on human rights and contemporary challenges raised by national security discourse 242 Kasey McCall-Smith, Andrea Birdsall and Elisenda Casanas Adam Index 255