Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, has declared that when dealing with would-be "terrorist fighters," he believes it should be easier to confiscate passports -- to stop people traveling, to prevent those who go abroad to fight from returning to the UK, and to deal decisively with those who are here. How exactly the Counter Terrorism Bill will be framed when it is published shortly remains unclear, but current proposals go beyond what is required and risk doing exactly what the U.N. Security Council insists on, which is to act in compliance with international law. "Dealing decisively with those who are here" sounds good, of course, and there are plenty of terrorism-related offences already on the statute books which can do duty.
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UK PM wants to make it easier for authorities to confiscate the passports of would-be jihadis
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British citizens subjected to planned exclusion orders will be banned from UK
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Goodwin Gill questions how government will know whether people are traveling for jihad
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"'Exile' is expressly prohibited by Article 9 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
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But what the @placeholder government now wants is a statutory power allowing it to seize and retain a canceled passport, so as to reduce the likelihood of it being used anyway.
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The new "temporary exclusion orders," it is proposed, will include passport cancellation, entry on a "no fly list," and sanctions against any airline carrying an "excluded" @placeholder citizen to the UK.
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Humanitarian workers thus run the risk of becoming trapped in a war zone, while others -- rightly or wrongly suspected of criminal activity -- may be rendered effectively stateless in some transit state or half-way house, in both cases denied the protection which the state owes to its citizens, and allowing the @placeholder to avoid the responsibility which it owes to other states.
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He has called for a "discretionary power" to exclude citizens from the @placeholder, though this seems to imply an arbitrary competence exercised according to the rule of government, not the legal certainty and procedural protection required by the rule of law, and with no regard either to the rights and interests of other states, or to the necessity for improved international cooperation.