Introduction “There should be no conflict between human rights and policing. Policing means protecting human rights.”15 Human rights are an integral element of all police operations and their practical application is an essential part of any successful investigation. They are the allies of effective police work. Paying attention to the rights and particular needs of the men, women and children who are part of the community that a police officer serves makes the police more effective. This principle applies as much to terrorism-related crimes as it does to other crimes. It is true that the emotion generated by terrorist acts may cloud the judgement of even the most stoic police officer and that the often covert and intense nature of terrorism-related investigations can give rise to acute and specific human rights concerns. However, similar emotion and similar issues often arise in investigations of other serious crimes. It is a fundamental requirement of international human rights law that a fair trial depend on a fair and impartial investigation conducted in full compliance with legal and human rights standards. A failure to apply these standards increases the risk of offenders escaping justice. Convictions are rendered unsafe either because innocent people subjected to torture or ill-treatment confess to something they have not done, or because of breaches of the respect for private and family life during surveillance or evidence-gathering operations, for example. In such cases, a court of first-instance can refuse to convict or a court of appeal could overturn the conviction. This is not a hypothetical point. The legal reports about a number of OSCE participating States by bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR)16 15 16 A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland, the Report of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland (Colegate: Crown, 1999), para. 4.1, <http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ issues/police/patten/patten99.pdf>. References will be made throughout the manual to the case-law of international bodies.