Assessing Damage, Urging Action Preface The Panel began work on this project in October 2005 when we met in Geneva to discuss how we should carry out the mandate given to us by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) to examine the compatibility of laws, policies and practices, which are justified expressly or implicitly as necessary to counter terrorism, with international human rights law and, where applicable, with international humanitarian law. After a study taking approximately three years, with sixteen national and regional Hearings, involving some forty countries we now publish our report. Wherever we went we encountered two themes. There is a need for action to combat terrorism, but a concern about the harm being done by the methods used for this purpose. The first came as no surprise to us because of the rise of terrorism as a method of political action during the past decade. We anticipated the second, because of our knowledge of some of the counter-terrorism methods that had attracted public concern and debate. That, after all, was the reason why the ICJ had asked us to conduct the inquiry. What we did not anticipate is how extensive the harm has been. The report details what we heard and the reasons for our concern. In the introduction to the report there is an account of the methodology adopted by the Panel, the Hearings it conducted, the people who gave evidence and made written submissions to the Panel, and persons with whom the Panel held private meetings. There are too many, and their contributions too vast, to allow for them to be acknowledged in detail in this preface. Their names are recorded in annexes to the report. They represent a diverse cross-section of well-informed, concerned people, drawn from communities affected by terrorism and counter-terrorism. We are extremely grateful to all of them for their willingness to meet and speak to us about their experience. It is from the information they provided that this report has been prepared. The ICJ, at whose initiative the Panel was appointed, has provided logistic and technical support to the Panel members. The project was the brainchild of Nicholas Howen the ICJ Secretary General. He took an active interest in the work of the Panel, offering valuable advice as we went along. Unfortunately he has been incapacitated by serious illness and has not been able to offer advice during the latter stages of the project. We wish him well and hope that he makes a full recovery. The ICJ Secretariat, in association with partner organisations in the different countries in which Hearings took place, organised the Hearings and briefed Panel members with relevant background information concerning legislation, policies, and practices. The team at the ICJ was led by Gerald Staberock, Director of its Global Security and the Rule of Law Programme. Over the past three years he has devoted an enormous amount of time and effort to researching legal and factual issues brought to the 1