Although the agreement cannot take effect without the approval of the European Parliament and the Council, the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) could read the proposed agreement only in a sealed room where they could not take notes or make copies.

The complete text on which the European Parliament will vote has finally been made public, revealing a failure to address the concerns raised by the Parliament and continued shortfalls in data protection, due process, and protection of fundamental rights.

In its resolution of 5 May 2010, the Parliament said that the Passenger Name Record (PNR) agreement should take the form of a treaty, recognize the fundamental right to freedom of movement, prohibit the use of PNR data for data mining or profiling, and take into consideration "PNR data which may be available from sources not covered by international agreements, such as computer reservation systems located outside the EU."

The proposed agreement does not meet these criteria, and does not mention any of these issues...

In view of the upcoming vote on the EU-USA PNR Agreement, the Austrian Organization for the Use of the Internet and NoPNR.org, with the endorsement, among others, of The Identity Project, Friends of Privacy USA, Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights, Statewatch and Privacy International, sent an Open Letter to the European Parliament asking its Members to consider the following issues for their decision on the EU-US PNR Agreement:

• The proposed agreement will not result in improved legal security for citizens
• There is no access control or access logging
• The proposed agreement does not meet the conditions set by the European Parliament
• There is no appropriate information to travelers

The first, filed by Khalid El-Masri in September 2009, claims unlawful abduction and mistreatment by the Macedonian Ministry of the Interior.

The second was filed by Abd Al-Rahim al Nashiri for alleged mistreatment during his detention at a secret prison (“black site”) in Poland...

The third, most recent case was filed against Lithuania by Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn (“Abu Zubaydah”) for alleged secret detention and torture by CIA agents committed at a Lithuanian black site...

El-Masri’s petition alleges that Macedonia violated Article 3 (prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to intervene during his torture and inhuman treatment by CIA agents in Macedonia; by allowing him to be transported to Afghanistan with the knowledge that he would be tortured and inhumanly treated at the destination; and by failing to investigate his arrest, detention, and transfer to the CIA by Macedonian authorities.

Additionally, El-Masri claims that his detention by Macedonian authorities for twenty-three days, along with his transfer to CIA agents, violated his right to liberty and security of person (Article 5), and that the failure by the Macedonian criminal courts to hear his case violated his right to remedy guaranteed by Article 13 of the Convention.

Regarding Al Nashiri, his petition alleges violations of Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), 5 (liberty and security of person), 8 (right to private and family life), 10 (freedom of expression), and 13 (right to remedy) of the Convention, and Protocol 6 to the Convention (abolition of the death penalty)...

If the Court accepts El-Masri’s and/or al Nashiri’s applications, both the applicants and the member states will be invited to present their claims before the Court. Should the Court find that a member state has violated the Convention, it may issue a declaratory judgment, order payment of damages and legal costs, or implement other measures of reparation.

This program, based on an article by John Knox for the American Society of International Law, "describes the background to the Guiding Principles, the Principles themselves, and the Council's decision to endorse them".

"Large corporations that operate across national boundaries might seem to be a natural subject for international regulation. Nevertheless, the United Nations has struggled for years to develop corporate standards. Negotiation of a Draft Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations in the 1970s and 1980s proved so contentious that the effort was eventually abandoned. In 1999, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched the Global Compact, an effort to encourage corporations to abide by basic principles on human rights, labor, environmental protection, and corruption. Although thousands of businesses around the world have agreed to participate in the Global Compact, its effectiveness is limited by its voluntary nature and the generality of its principles.

In 2003, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, a group of independent experts, proposed that the Human Rights Commission, the predecessor to the Human Rights Council, adopt Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights.

The Draft Norms provided that virtually every human right gives rise to a wide range of duties on virtually every corporation... [I]f adopted by the Commission the Norms could have become the basis for a later binding instrument or influenced the development of customary international law.

But the Draft Norms proved to be controversial. While human rights groups strongly supported them, most corporations opposed them, and the governments on the Human Rights Commission decided not to adopt them.

Instead, the Commission requested the Secretary-General in 2005 to appoint a special representative on human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, with a mandate to clarify existing standards and elaborate on the role of states in effectively regulating corporations. Annan named John Ruggie...

From the outset of his tenure as Special Representative, Ruggie made clear that he would take a different approach from that of the Draft Norms. He criticized the Norms’ “exaggerated legal claims” that human rights law directly imposes a wide spectrum of duties on corporations.

Security Council resolutions 1988 and 1989 create two separate sanctions regimes, one for Al-Qaida and another for the Taliban. Up until this point, there has only been one sanctions regime to deal with both groups, established under Security Council Resolution 1267 in 1999...

This change lays the groundwork for de-listing members of the Taliban to participate in the so-called reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan.

The UN special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism at that time, Martin Scheinin, said the changes to the sanctions regime do not resolve fundamental deficiencies throughout the listing and de-listing process and exacerbates other human rights concerns.

In his statement the Rapporteur says that "The terrorist blacklist has been subject to consistent and growing criticism, including by certain judicial bodies and the Human Rights Committee, for its human rights shortcomings. Issues of fair trial and due process, right to privacy, freedom of movement and right to property have been raised and litigated".

Despite the reforms, the Special Rapporteur has maintained the position that the procedures for terrorist listing and delisting by the 1267 Committee of the Security Council do not meet international human rights standards concerning due process or fair trial.

Ostensibly, these 'smart sanctions' (which target groups and individuals rather than whole populations) are designed to disrupt the activities of terrorist groups by criminalising their members, cutting off their access to funds and undermining their support.

In practice, however, far too many people have been included in national and international terrorism lists. At the same time, they have been systematically denied the possibility of mounting a meaningful defence to the allegations against them. Moreover, many listings are clearly politically or ideologically motivated, undermining genuine counter-terrorism efforts and paralysing conflict resolution efforts.

The UN blacklisting regime stems from UN Security Council Resolution 1267, which created the first list of alleged terrorists "associated with Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda". [...]

The EU's terrorist lists stem from the measures it took to transpose Resolution 1373 into EU law and currently stands at 57 individuals and 47 organisations. In addition to the UN and EU lists, many states have adopted domestic blacklists, massively expanding the net of criminalisation.

Whereas the EU has adopted a particularly broad definition of ‘terrorism’, the UN has failed to reach such an understanding, despite decades of deliberation. UN Security Council Resolution 1373 thus effectively outsources the definition of terrorism to nation states, encouraging the criminalisation of groups on the basis of geopolitical, foreign policy or diplomatic interests.

The criminalisation of self-determination movements that has resulted has transformed the migrant and Diaspora communities that support them into ‘suspect communities’ and obstructed peace processes aimed at resolving such conflicts.

There is now an irrefutable body of expert legal opinion that views international proscription regimes as incompatible with the most basic standards of due process. The adverse and unacceptable impact of the sanctions on fundamental human rights is also abundantly clear and systemic violations have been recognised repeatedly in judicial proceedings, particularly within Europe.