A/HRC/13/37 counter-terrorism focal points and facilitating their role as interface between national, regional and global counter-terrorism efforts. The CTITF retreat focused on ways forward to expand and strengthen partnerships between member States, the United Nations system, regional and other organizations and civil society in implementing the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.2 8. On 20 October 2009, the Special Rapporteur was represented at a seminar in Brussels on “Strengthening the UN Targeted Sanctions through Fair and Clear Procedures”, organized by the Belgian Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation. 9. From 26 to 28 October 2009, the Special Rapporteur was in New York to present to the Third Committee of the General Assembly his report,3 which focused on the gender impact of counter-terrorism measures. The Special Rapporteur had a formal meeting with the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council and met with the Director of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED). The Special Rapporteur was a panellist at a side event “Engendering Counter-Terrorism and National Security” hosted by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice of the New York University School of Law. He also met with a number of non-governmental organizations and gave a press conference. 10. On 29 October 2009, the Special Rapporteur met with the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and other officials of the United States State Department in Washington D.C., to discuss current and future legal developments with the new Administration, in follow-up to his visit to the United States of America in 2007,4 and more general issues concerning international humanitarian and human rights law in the counter-terrorism context. III. The right to privacy A. The right to privacy as enshrined in constitutions and international human rights treaties 11. Privacy is a fundamental human right that has been defined as the presumption that individuals should have an area of autonomous development, interaction and liberty, a “private sphere” with or without interaction with others and free from State intervention and free from excessive unsolicited intervention by other uninvited individuals.5 The right to privacy has evolved along two different paths. Universal human rights instruments have focused on the negative dimension of the right to privacy, prohibiting any arbitrary interference with a person’s privacy, family, home or correspondence,6 while some regional and domestic instruments have also included a positive dimension: everyone has the right to 2 3 4 5 6 GE.09-17804 See General Assembly resolution 60/288. A/64/211. See A/HRC/6/17/Add.3. Lord Lester and D. Pannick (eds.), Human Rights Law and Practice (London, Butterworth, 2004), para. 4.82. See the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (art. 12); the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, art. 17); the International Convention on the Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (art. 14); and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 16). 5