For more than forty years, the Council of Europe has helped to develop and reinforce key legal standards to prevent and suppress acts of terrorism, Now the organisation's Committee on Counter-Terrorism (CDCT) has published a guide on the use of information collected in conflict zones as evidence in terrorism trials.
The aim is to help practitioners carry out their investigations and prosecutions of crimes of terrorism and other related crimes - including violations of international humanitarian law - committed in the context of armed conflicts.
The Council of Europe adopted a pioneering recommendation in March 2022 to regulate the collection and use of information from conflict zones. As a next step, a practical tool to help implement the recommendation has now been produced. Entitled "Comparative Practices on the Use of Information Collected in Conflict Zones as Evidence in Criminal Proceedings", it aims to provide guidance on how to use information from conflict zones effectively to advance justice and accountability, in accordance with national laws and relevant international human rights and rule of law standards.
The publication was prepared through collaboration between the CDCT and the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ), with support from the United States Department of State.
