10 Report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on terrorism, counter-terrorism and human rights of regional organisations, including the Council of Europe and the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights.10 The Panel would like to place on its record its appreciation for the hundreds of contributions received. The fact that so many people engaged shows the level of interest in the topic, and the Hearings highlighted the value of encouraging thoughtful debate on these sometimes highly contentious issues. All of the material, and particularly the fact that it came from such a wide array of countries, from a whole variety of legal and other disciplines, and from very many different perspectives, has deeply enriched and informed the Panel’s deliberations. What the Panel heard The Panel was struck by the similarity of the testimony provided at the Hearings. From New York to Nairobi, from Brussels to Bogotá, and from Moscow to the Maghreb, the voices heard by the Panel spoke with disturbing consistency and regularity that well-established principles of international law are being ignored. Witnesses testified to the fact that: • In many countries, legal and human rights protections are regularly sidestepped. Individuals are abducted; held in secret prisons; and often tortured or ill-treated. The effect is to place individual terrorist suspects beyond the protections afforded by human rights standards, international humanitarian law, or domestic constitutional guarantees; • Many counter-terrorist mechanisms lack the normal guarantees of oversight and accountability. This means that when violations occur those responsible enjoy impunity for their behaviour. Victims of such violations often find themselves with no avenue for redress; • New counter-terrorist laws have been enacted (with minimal examination of the adequacy of existing laws), and they often contain over-broad definitions of terrorism or terrorist acts, and provide for new offences that risk penalising political opinion or social dissent; • Terrorist suspects are often held incommunicado for extended periods before they are charged, and before they have access to lawyers, courts or the outside world; • Individuals charged with terrorism are regularly tried in a number of countries before special or military courts that are neither independent nor impartial, and do not offer basic fair trial guarantees; 10 See Annex 4 for a list of private meetings.