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UK-COE: Convention on terrorism: "the Government cannot and should not ratify the Convention because the UK’s domestic law is not compatible with it"
01 January 2007
Convention on terrorism: Report from the UK parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (pdf)
The report finds that:
"The most significant difference concerns the definition of “terrorism”. The offence of encouragement of terrorism in s.1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 is much wider than the offence which is required to be criminalised by Article 5 of the Convention and the Committee remains of the view that it therefore carries with it a considerable risk of incompatibility with the right to freedom of expression in Article 10 ECHR"
and
"The Committee takes the view that the offence of encouragement to terrorism as defined in s.1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 is likely to have a disproportionate impact on freedom of expression, contrary to the express requirement in Article 12 of the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism. It therefore concludes that, on the current state of the law, the Government cannot and should not ratify the Convention because the UK’s domestic law is not compatible with it"