The Fight against Terrorism and Blacklisting

By Imelda Tappeiner, Utrecht University

Date: 24 May 2005

Place: Radboud University Nijmegen

Room: 8.01.07

Time: 3.30 -5.30 p.m.

Outline of the presentation by Imelda Tappeiner

Although not new, the fight against terrorism came on top of the agenda of the European Union (EU) and its member states after September 11. In the area of freedom, security and justice, security has therefore become more and more predominant. Human rights such as privacy, property rights, fair trial, non-discrimination are endangered by increased powers of law enforcement and intelligence services operating under the umbrella of combating terrorism.

Interesting in this context is the phenomenon of the blacklisting. Individuals, organizations and ‘entities’ were put on several international lists with the most important aim to freeze their financial assets and prosecute them. First in the chain are the lists of the Security Council of the United Nations (SC-UN) followed by those of the European Union (EU). The member states have an obligation to comply and so implement on national level these UN and EU measures and execute them against those named on the lists.

Why and how individuals and organizations are put on such a list is all but clear and transparent, although probably the guess is correct that the intelligence services, with the Americans in the lead, deliver most of the required ‘relevant information’.

The position of the individual (or organization) so unfortunate to be named and therefore marked as a terrorist is remarkably weak especially if the subject has been put on the EU-lists. Weak is in the first place because of the lack of any de-listing procedure that eventually can lead to a remove of the name after it has become clear that an error has been made. In the second place because of the particular system of division of competences between first, second and third pillar chosen in the legislative instruments used by the Council of the EU. Finally because the mechanism of judicial protection on both national and European level seems to fail where the individual in some way challenges the measures adopted against him because of his being named on the lists or his being named in the first place.

In this presentation I will draw attention to the following points:

Introduction:

The fight against terrorism and the blacklisting (briefly)

The lists:

The Executive Order of the president of the United States of America

The lists part of several Resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations regarding Afghanistan, the Taliban, Osama bin Laden en the ‘9/11 Resolution’

The lists part of the measures of the Council of the European Union

How the EU-lists work:

The ‘December 27th 2001 package’ of measures

Related European jurisprudence:

Cases still pending at the Court of First Instance of the EC

Decisions:

Aden e.a. (Case T-306/010)

Segi e.a. (ECHR Appl.nr. 6422/02 - 9916/02 and CoFI Case T-338/02)

Sison(Case T-47/03 and joint cases T-110/03, T-150/03, T-405/03)