A panel that consisted mostly of attorneys discussed various international efforts to balance security concerns and civil rights on Friday evening, Feb. 24.
Professor Gwyn Prins, alliance research professor in the London School of Economics, gave a wide overview of the problem at hand.
He began with a brief look at the allegations of arbitrary detainment in the U.S. Naval Base at Guant??namo Bay, placing it in historical context by comparing it with other cases of detainment.
Prins' father was among those who fled the Netherlands for England during the Nazi occupation of Europe. These people were subsequently held on the Island of Man as refugees, an example of a de jure (with legal precedent) detainment in time of war.
He contrasted that example with the actions of the Metropolitan Police in the wake of the London subway bombings last year. Police closed off entire Pakistani-Muslim neighborhoods around London and removed people from their homes for questioning.
Instances such as the London case, like the allegations of detainment in the U.S. base at Guant??namo Bay, claim a murkier legal mandate than detainments at the Island of Man.
They, too, exemplify the increasingly difficult choices that countries must make in the face of global terrorism.
"We have a choice of greater or lesser evils," Prins said, referring to democratic countries' efforts to use appropriate force to combat their enemies without undermining their own values.
"The price of freedom is constant vigilance," Prins said, "vigilance over our enemies and vigilance over ourselves."
Ruth Levush, senior law specialist on Israel for the Law Library of Congress, spoke on similar themes in the context of Israel.
A country beset by terrorist threats from its inception, Israel has a long history of coping with the balance between security and personal rights.
Levush focused on the No. 300 Bus Affair and the Nasfu Case, two incidents that helped expose the Israeli General Security Service's (GSS) use of torture and systemic false testimony in order to achieve its aims.
This use of torture to elicit confessions, combined with subsequent perjury by government officers, led to the 1984 Convention Against Torture and a reform of the GSS.
Until that time, Levush said, the interrogation methods of Israeli security forces were unregulated and "torture led to perjury in court."
"Security measures should not preempt civil liberties, [they] should be balanced against them," Levush said.
Other panelists included former Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong Bryan Bachner, Senior Foreign Law Specialist on Greece and the European Union Theresa Papademetriou, former Associate Professor of Commercial and Corporate Law at the University of Buenos Aires Gracieal Rodriguez-Ferrand and Senior Foreign Law specialist on Russia Peter Roudik.
The panel was moderated by sophomores Jessica Anderson and Anna Gollub.
