Administrative Measures and Circumvention of the Protection of Criminal Law Criminal law is not always the appropriate instrument when seeking to prevent and counter terrorism and FTF-related acts, and there is a complementary role for a range of different types of preventive and responsive measures. However, administrative measures that have a punitive effect should not be used as alternatives to criminal law responses to bypass the higher procedural guarantees of criminal law and procedure. These include standards of proof and the nature of evidence that can be used, as well as the availability of opportunities for appeal or meaningful challenge. The UNCTED has recommended that administrative measures only be used where “it would not be appropriate to bring terrorism related charges.”157 Moreover, it has been recognized that where measures such as preventive detention or restrictive control orders are used as an alternative to criminal process, but with comparable impact on the individual affected, the more stringent standards, processes and safeguards of criminal law should be applied.158 In practice, states need to address and take seriously the concern that the upsurge in administrative measures in the counter-terrorism context, including FTF-related acts, is “a repressive tool which problematically circumvents the procedures and guarantees of criminal prosecution.”159 Specific issues arising in relation to two groups of administrative measures – citizenship stripping and restrictions on liberty – are addressed below. Limits on Permissible Deprivation of Nationality (and Exclusion) A growing practice, adopted in a number of states, and proposed in others, involves stripping individuals who have engaged in FTF-related acts or are considered to pose a terrorist threat of their citizenship.160 In response, limits on the permissibility of some of these measures have been clarified by courts that have developed legal standards through case-law. In some cases, practices have been modified as a result of such caselaw, or the government has retreated from its stated plans.161 157  UNCTED 2016, Implementation of Security Council resolution 2178 (2014), para. 155, op. cit., note 62. 158  The principle that criminal due process standards should apply in certain circumstances to civil and administrative measures depending on their nature and impact, is established in Engel and Others v. The Netherlands, ECtHR, Judgment of 8 June 1976, para. 82, and has been accepted in cases on, for example, control orders in the counter-terrorism context. 159  B. Boutin, “Administrative Measures against Foreign Fighters: In Search of Limits and Safeguards”, p. 19, op. cit., note 155. 160  The practice emerged, for example, in the United Kingdom, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands and France. See B. van Ginkel and E. Entenmann (eds.), “The Foreign Fighters Phenomenon in the European Union”, op. cit., note 16. It included cases of deprivation of citizenship both as a consequence of the conviction of terrorist offences (such as the case of Ghoumid v France, which is pending before the ECtHR at the time of writing) and on the ground of the individuals being considered to constitute a threat to national security (such as cases in the United Kingdom). 161  In the United Kingdom, for example, practices have been modified, whereas, in Canada, in June 2017, the government repealed amendments (to the Citizenship Act and other statues) that had revoked citizenship for joining an armed group in a conflict abroad. Guidelines for Addressing the Threats and Challenges of “Foreign Terrorist Fighters” 47