BERLIN, Aug 27: Legal experts from around the world warned on Friday that human rights and the rule of law are being trampled on in the US-led "war on terrorism". "The war against terrorism is more than a set of specific laws. It is a way of thinking.

A disturbing rhetoric (which) assumes that rights and freedoms are a nuisance and interfere with security," Nicholas Howen, secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), told a conference in Berlin.

"We thought we would never have to answer again whether someone who commits barbaric acts can be treated humanely," he said. "Instead, we witness governments again trying to justify torture in the name of national security, detainees held in legal black holes, the right to a fair trial cut down," Mr Howen told more than 150 legal experts at the conference.

Arthur Chaskalson, the president of the ICJ, a Geneva-based non-governmental organization, said human rights had never been under such threat since the end of the Cold War.

"We see countries holding suspects without access to their family or lawyers and without trial," said Mr Chaskalson, who is chief justice at South Africa's constitutional court.

The United States, which launched its "war" after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and its major ally in Iraq, Britain, came in for particular criticism. So did a number of Asian countries, notably Indonesia.

"Have governments collectively declared a global state of emergency? If so, let us remember that any state of emergency must be an extension of the rule of law, notan abrogation of it," said Mr Howen, whose ICJ organized the conference.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, in a keynote opening speech laying out her position on the issue publicly for the first time, said she had been troubled by developments in recent years. -AFP