The High Commissioner for Human Rights is required to take an active role in examining the issue, and in particular, to make general recommendations and to provide relevant assistance and advice to states, upon their request.52 In April 2004 the Commission approved the appointment of an independent expert to assist the High Commissioner in implementing the resolution.53 The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has also produced a study on the question of terrorism and human rights.54 The Sub-Commission decided “to establish […] a working group […] with the mandate to elaborate detailed principles and guidelines, with relevant commentary, concerning the promotion and protection of human rights when combating terrorism, based, inter alia, on the preliminary framework draft of principles and guidelines contained in the working paper prepared by Ms. Koufa.”55 These draft guidelines have not yet been approved but will provide an assessment of counter-terrorism measures, human rights standards and international humanitarian law.56 Most significant, perhaps, in relation to the UN commitment to countering terrorism from a multi-disciplinary perspective is the launching of its Global Strategy for Fighting Terrorism.57 The main elements of that strategy, and the role of the United Nations within it are: • first, to dissuade disaffected groups from choosing terrorism as a tactic to achieve their goals; • second, to deny terrorists the means to carry out their attacks; • third, to deter states from supporting terrorists; • fourth, to develop state capacity to prevent terrorism; and • fifth, to defend human rights in the struggle against terrorism. In relation to the last point, the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in launching the strategy, emphasized the importance of human rights in combating terrorism. He regretted that […] international human rights experts, including those of the UN system, are unanimous in finding that many measures which States are currently adopting to counter-terrorism infringe on human rights and fundamental freedoms.58 52 The work of the UN OHCHR in this area includes, among other things: the Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the 58th session of the Commission on Human Rights, “Human Rights: A Uniting Framework”, doc. E/CN.4/2002/18, 27 February 2002; the Digest of Jurisprudence of the United Nations and Regional Organizations on the Protection of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism, doc. HR/PUB/03/1 (New York and Geneva, 2003). Moreover, “former High Commissioner Mary Robinson and the late High Commissioner Sergio Vieira de Mello both addressed the CTC, urging it to take account of human rights in its review of counter-terrorism measures […] Since then, the CTC and the UN Human Rights Committee have exchanged briefings on their working methods and areas of concern”, see http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/terrorism/index.htm. 53 UN Resolution 2004/87, para. 10. 54 The study consists of a series of papers prepared between 1997 and 2004 by the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Terrorism of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Prof. Kalliopi K. Koufa. All the papers are available at http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/terrorism/rapporteur/index.htm. Despite the abolition of the Commission and its replacement with the Human Rights Council, the Sub-Commission’s work continues. 55 Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Decision 2004/109 of 12 August 2004, doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/DEC/2004/109, para. (a). 56 See the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, “Updated framework draft of principles and guidelines concerning human rights and terrorism”, Second expanded working paper prepared by Kalliopi K. Koufa, doc. A/HRC/ Sub.1/58/30*, 3 August 2006. 57 Op. cit., note 9, Kofi Annan, “A Global Strategy for Fighting Terrorism”. 58 Ibid. 38 Countering Terrorism, Protecting Human Rights