88 Report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on terrorism, counter-terrorism and human rights broad defences, such as ignorance of the law, which may result in indemnity for those involved in improper interrogation and detention practices. Indemnity, immunity provisions, or broad legal defences against prosecution are found in a variety of countries, and the Panel learnt of such measures introduced in the Russian Federation and South Asia as part of their counter-terrorist provisions.207 The lack of willingness on the part of individual States to ensure effective accountability, and to address alleged complicity for human rights violations in intelligence cooperation, is replicated at the regional level. The Council of the European Union failed to respond to the findings and conclusions of the EU Parliamentary inquiry into cooperation with extraordinary renditions. Equally, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has failed to implement the proposals of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe to draw up standards to protect against renditions and secret detentions, nor taken any decisive follow-up to the inquiry by the Rapporteur of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.208 European governments have yet to move forward on the recommendations to develop a legal framework that would facilitate intelligence cooperation compliant with European and international human rights standards. 5. Conclusions & Recommendations: intelligence The gathering and sharing of intelligence is important, so the key question is what safeguards are necessary to ensure that the serious human rights violations of the kinds reported above are avoided in future. In Chapter One on human rights, the Panel countered the myth that respect for human rights can sometimes run counter to a State’s duty to protect human life against terrorist attack. It is perhaps in the sphere of secret intelligence that some of the difficulties of ensuring human rights and security (and not human rights “or” security) are most pronounced. Intelligence agencies traditionally rely on a culture of secrecy; human rights law demands clear accountability. In the past, the intelligence community has often experienced limited regulation at the domestic level. Several curiae briefs by REDRESS and the ICJ to US Court of Appeals, July 2008. See also Hepting et al. v. AT&T Corp. et al., (see http://www.eff.org/cases/hepting). 207 See Article 22 of the 2006 Law on Counter-terrorism Operation and EJP Russian Federation Hearing; see on similar clauses, EJP Hearing in South Asia and especially Section 26 of the PTA and Section 19 Emergency Regulation 2006 in Sri Lanka; Section 21 (3) TADO in Nepal; the Joint Drive Indemnity Act 2003 in Bangladesh which provided immunity from prosecution to officials involved of the Rapid Action Battalion allegedly responsible for extra-judicial killings and other grave human rights violations. 208 Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Committee of Ministers, Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe Member States: Second Report –Recommendation 1801 (2007), Reply from the Committee of Ministers, adopted at the 1015th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies on 16 January 2008, Doc. 11493, 19 January 2008. While reaffirming governments’ obligations to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for serious human rights violations, the Committee of Ministers failed to respond to calls for concrete measures to prevent recurrence and stated that only “if necessary, (it) will consider undertaking further work in this respect.”