UK Workshop

May 2007

This workshop drew together a wide spectrum of policy makers, NGOs, CSOs and donors to reflect upon the fallout from worldwide anti-terrorism measures, based on people’s experiences from around the world, and to track changes in the wider aid architecture and their implications for the development sector as a whole. The aim was to assess implications for the development sector.

Key messages to emerge included:

• The concept of legitimacy and the role of the state is shifting and that appears to be redefined in the current security-led climate.

• The over emphasis on the threat of international terrorism is displacing priority issues of ‘maldevelopment’, a prime threat especially in the South and which is currently being overlooked and undermined through the blurring of the security agenda with aid policy.

• National legislation on counter-terrorism measures is systematically undermining international human rights law.

• The current discourse on insurgency and counter-terrorism has been cast in a way that is a historical and illegal.

• Learning the lessons from history requires recognising that in a context of terrorism the primacy of upholding human rights becomes even more important as well as reappropriating the state in such a way to secure social development.

The views expressed in this section are those of civil society organisations in different regions, and do not necessarily reflect those of INTRAC.