The US-led war on terror is threatening civil liberties and human rights around the world, the United Nations human rights chief Mrs Mary Robinson said tonight.
Her comments echo a warning by Amnesty International a week ago.
Mrs Robinson, former President of Ireland, told an audience at London's Commonwealth Institute that security concerns in the wake of the September 11th attacks should not be a reason to neglect the rights of individuals or groups.
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She claimed official reactions to the attacks at times have seemed to subordinate the principles of human rights to other more 'robust' action in the war against terrorism.
"There has been a tendency to ride roughshod over, or at least to set on one side, established principles of international human rights and humanitarian law," she said.
Mrs Robinson cited Amnesty International's annual report issued on May 28th in which the human rights watchdog accused governments from the United States to South Korea of rushing through laws giving themselves emergency powers with little regard for rights.
Her warning came as US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld told NATO defence ministers in Brussels they must go on the offensive because a terror attack could occur at any time.
Mr Rumsfeld is heading to nuclear powers India and Pakistan to try to defuse growing tension over the disputed region of Kashmir, which he fears could harm the war on terror.
The United States is concerned the movement of Pakistan's troops away from its border with Afghanistan to mass instead on the Indian border will impede the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.
Mrs Robinson ended her speech with an appeal to learn the lessons of September 11th. "We now understand in a more profound way that no nation can isolate or exclude itself from the effects of global problems of endemic poverty and conflict," she said.
"If it is to succeed in its goal of ensuring greater human security, combating terror must also be a war on disadvantage, discrimination, and despair."