Speaking Notes for Academic Conference on Liberal Perspectives
on Terrorism and Civil Liberties
23 June 2006, De La Salle University, Manila
Graham Watson MEP

Introduction

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. It has plagued humankind since some of the earliest societies. We should not expect to solve it in our generation. Nonetheless we have a duty to try.

Liberals are sometimes derided for being soft. Yet Liberalism is not a soft option. In our thinking, the first duty of the State is to protect its citizens. They badly need protection from current threats.

If I may take one recent example:

No civilised person could excuse the indiscriminate barbarity which claimed the lives of 52 innocent civilians in London on the morning of 7 July 2005. A city which - only the previous day - had celebrated the plurality, diversity and tolerance which persuaded the International Olympic Committee to award it the 2012 Olympic Games.

In recent years, terror attacks in every corner of the world - not least here in the Philippines - have pulled policy makers out of their post Cold-War slumber to confront one of the greatest challenges of the early twenty-first century. Ensuring both liberty and security.

Liberals and Democrats welcome the drive to strengthen global security.  We are concerned, however, that policies should be measured, proportionate and value-driven.

Too many, governments have been too eager to exploit the fear factor in this matter.  In an age in which the concept of the nation state is challenged, many have seen this as an opportunity to re-assert its validity.

In the EU-context that has taken a number of forms.

In Italy, stop-and-search powers have been given to the armed forces.

In Germany, police surveillance in public places has been stepped up.

In France, CCTV cameras cover the public transport system.

In the country I know best, recent HRs legislation has been radically revised.

Any of these measures may at times appear justifiable but, in a climate of fear without proper democratic oversight and control, the risk is that they foster insecurity and threaten to undermine our civil liberties.

Others are simply not defensible.

It is deeply troubling when the tools of justice and public order violate the European Charter of Human Rights and other well-defined international standards.

Yet again and again we see that the language of the war on terror leads to the justice of Wyatt Earp and 'High Noon' - a point illustrated by the tragic death of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes at the hands of the UK authorities on 22 July 2005.

Or indeed the current scandal involving extraordinary rendition of detainees via the European Union for CIA interrogation and deportation of third country nationals to countries where they may face torture or worse.

The Liberal Dilemma

The nub of our dilemma is that the State is the main protector of both our security and our liberty.

We do not agree with Tony Blair when he said after 2005's London bombings that the human rights of the victims are more important than the human rights of the terrorists. 

Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law form the basis of Liberal Democratic ideology and Western Civilisation. And they are indivisible.

Much as the public may dislike it, suspected terrorists also have rights.

They have the right to a fair trial. They have the right to be interrogated, not tortured, by the police. They have the right to legal counsel and to representation in a court of law. And, if convicted, they have the right to be imprisoned in humane conditions.

To suspend those values and invoke a form of summary justice would, in the words of the lawyer Cherie Booth 'cheapen our right to call ourselves a civilised society'.

It would be particularly ill fitting for those of us who were teenagers in democracies in the 1960s – sometimes called the 'freedom generation' – to deny our children the standards of justice for which our colleagues from all over the world -particularly those here today from Asia and Africa- have fought so bravely.

War on Terror Undermines Western Values and Its Own Objectives

"The measure of a civilisation, as Dostoyevsky once said, can be judged simply by entering its prisons.

The White House should reflect on what kind of civilisation it is exporting when one of its senior officials - the deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy none the less - has the crassness and disrespect for human life to classify prison suicides as 'a good PR move'

The fate of the 3 men who took their own lives at Guantanamo this month after four years in legal limbo symbolise all that is wrong with the US response to terrorism today.

Just last week, a survey of 17,000 people by the Pew Research Group revealed that a majority of people in countries outside the US believe:

• the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place - including 60% in my own country - the UK - which is the US biggest ally
• The US-led occupation of Iraq is more of a threat to world peace than Iran's nuclear programme.
• the US will not achieve its goals in the "war on terror"

The likes of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have simply perpetuated the Occidentalist ideology of men like Bin Laden and recruited an ever growing number of outraged, like-minded, individuals to the fundamentalist cause.

For proof we need look no further than Iraq, the focus of the war on terror, which is now the world's biggest terrorist hotbed and where the threat of civil war between Sunni and Shia could further destabilise the Middle East.

A Liberal Alternative

There must be an alternative.

Liberals and Democrats can not allow cherished ideals like democracy, human rights and the rule of law to be tarred with the brush of hypocrisy and abused for national self-interest.

That is why as we must insist on the universal application of these ideals to all human beings.

When the Supreme Court rules at the end of this month on whether Military Commissions are a legal means to try prisoners at Guantanamo Bay prison camp we must demand - alongside the EU, the UN, and Human Rights Groups around the world - that all detainees be tried in internationally recognised courts of law.

And that this illegal detention facility be closed without further delay.

For the Liberal reputation - indeed, our influence - rests on upholding values like democracy, liberty and respect for human rights.

Freedom and security are not alternatives but go hand in hand - the one enabling the other.

As Thomas Paine once warned: 'He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself'.

That is why my colleagues and I in the European Parliament have been campaigning to uphold Universal Human Rights in the implementation of the EU's common foreign and security policy and all Justice and Home Affairs initiatives linked to the fight against terrorism.

Effective provisions on data protection to accompany data retention measures, for example, would overcome the understandable fears of many colleagues that rights are being eroded.

A commitment to properly debated and democratically determined legislation, transparent policy-making and guaranteed rights, would enhance the moral standing of Europe's response to terror.

While minimum procedural guarantees for defendants in criminal trials for the European Arrest Warrant - which have been held up by Member States since 2001 are necessary for its just implementation.

It was Thucydides who said: "we should be praised for being more just than our available power would normally imply"

I've spoken about Europe where, as Chairman of the Justice and Home Affairs committee, I had the honour to be involved in crafting legislation.

Principles I've outlined apply equally well elsewhere.

I am not saying that the only consideration in fighting terror should be the protection of civil liberties.

But an intelligent attack on terror seeks to deal with underlying causes. Liberals believe in conversation, not conversion. Terrorists are educated, but they are young, angry and vulnerable. They feel left out. Work provides dignity, yet there is 35 % unemployment in some North African countries.

Sects nurture people and make them feel important. A civilised society must do the same.

That is why I salute the real Liberals in the Liberal Party of the Philippines, who had the courage to pull out of the ruling coalition when it abandoned Liberal principles in the war against terror.

The answer to the current approach to terror reminds me of the answer given to puzzled philosophers by the supercomputer in Douglas Adams' book "The hitchhikers' guide to the galaxy". The computer says 'I think the problem is.... that you've never actually known what the question is'.

The advocates of the war on terror appear to have overlooked the matter of identity. So terrified are they of the threats that America faces, they are blind to the threats that America poses. Perhaps when history comes to be written, Woodrow Wilson's ideas of national self determination will be seen as more powerful thank Karl Marx's idea of social class. Persistence to rule by foreigners is why the most powerful nation on earth is unable to control even a medium size city like Fallujah.

Promoting intercultural understanding and the concept of the individual enjoying multiple layers of identity are important. I am not a catholic, but I share my Scottish identity with Scottish catholics and my Liberal identity with catholic Filipino Liberals. Moslem, Jew, Budhist, Hindu or Christian -or none of these- we share a human identity. So, as Mark Twain said of Wagner's music, it's not as bad as it sounds.

To ensure the rule of law, we need our judicial and police authorities to work together across borders. Given proper democratic oversight and control of their activities and of intelligence -led policing, we can make our world a safer place. Existing laws will normally suffice in the fight against terrorists. But in a world where a terrorist can be half way across a continent before the policeman has his boots on, existing practices do not. Much is being done at EU level to ensure the co-operation and co-ordination necessary to protect our citizens. On a wider canvass, all democracies must work together, cognizant of the threat we face but confident in the ability of the Liberal state to tackle it.