The Quest for a Standard Preventive Detention Framework

Since the power of preventive detention carries the inherent risk of abuse, an attempt will be made in this chapter to evaluate the safeguards which have the merit of obviating the possibility of such abuse. Accordingly, this chapter, in the first place, will examine the safeguards stipulated by various human rights treaties and international principles for reducing the impact of the exercise of the power of preventive detention on the human rights of individuals. Subsequently, this chapter will turn its focus to the safeguards stipulated by some of the modern constitutions for constraining the scope of the power of preventive detention. Finally, in light of such analyses, this chapter would endeavour to design a standard framework concerning preventive detention, which would strike an appropriate balance between the necessity to respond to the threats posed to the security of a nation and to simultaneously preserve the right of a detainee to freedom from arbitrary detention.