The language of war has a recognised and intimate relationship with the abuse of a core set of civil and political rights. Detention without trial, arbitrary arrest, disappearance, torture and the like soon result once a political authority decides to describe a conflict in which it is involved as ‘war’. National or regime security takes centre stage, security ideologies play a stronger role, and the means employed push at the boundaries of the acceptable. This close association between conflict and human-rights abuse, if no other reason, should make us pause before we too readily resort to the language of war. The Cold War and the current ‘global war on terror’ – to use the US term – are no exceptions to this general finding. Disappearance, torture and extra-judicial killings have been features of both. The struggle against terrorism has generated a sense of impunity for actions that threaten many different groups.