Stephen Harper’s plan to ban Canadians from travelling to so-called terrorist hotspots puts him in lockstep with authoritarian regimes — and misses an important opportunity to delve into the root causes of extremism — said an expert in international human rights law.

“If you want to know which states put restrictions on movement of citizens, it’s authoritarian states,” said John Packer, director of the University of Ottawa’s Human Rights Research and Education Centre. “The real question is, why does anybody choose to be associated with groups like these?”

Harper announced on Sunday that he would put a ban on travel to ISIS-controlled areas, saying there is no legitimate reason for people to travel there other than to take part in terrorist activities.

“Frankly, these are not areas where families go,” he said. “These are areas where we know why people are really going. They are going for terrorist training.”

Australia and South Korea are the only other democracies that have implemented ISIS-related travel bans for their citizens: Australia introduced a ban on travel to al-Raqqa province in Syria and Mosul in Iraq in December 2014, while this spring South Korea imposed a temporary ban on travel to Afghanistan and Somalia until February 2016.

The majority of countries that have implemented travel bans are not democracies.

Over the summer summer, Morocco banned youth groups from travelling to Tunisia over fears they might join extremists. Tunisia has barred citizens under the age of 35 from travelling to Turkey, Morocco, Algeria and Libya without legal authorization from their fathers, citing the desire to prevent them from joining extremists.

Egyptian citizens have been banned from travelling to Libya since February 2015, with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi citing extremist ideology as a cause for the ban.

In December 2014, Egypt also banned citizens between the ages of 18 and 40 from travelling to Turkey without a special permit, in order to prevent recruitment by ISIS.

Saudi citizens are banned from travelling to Israel, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Thailand and Pakistan. North Koreans are banned from travelling pretty much anywhere, unless it’s for the Olympics.

Most Western countries, including France and the United States, have limited their travel bans to individuals who they believe may attempt to go abroad.

Under Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, states cannot restrict the travel of their citizens unless they can prove it is “necessary to protect national security.”

It’s unlikely Harper would be able to prove that a blanket travel ban would do that, Packer said, and such a ban would not be likely to hold up in court.

“‘Necessary to protect national security’ is objective — it’s not what the prime minister may prefer,” he said.

Patti Lenard, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa focusing on immigration policies, said the move is part of a global trend of countries attempting to show a strong face when it comes to fighting extremism.

But in reality, she said, the number of people affected by such a ban would be small and unlikely to make much of a difference.

“They allow the government to protect an image of being tough on terror,” she said, noting such a ban would target Muslims disproportionately. “It’s a minority population that’s not very popular.”

Human rights groups have attacked the proposal, saying it raises larger concerns about the ability of humanitarian workers to operate in such regions.

“Amnesty is concerned about any measures which effectively close borders and isolate communities,” said Hilary Homes, a spokesperson for Amnesty International Canada. “Whether the travel ban is a blanket one or conditional, it raises serious concerns about the potential impact on the ability of NGOs, UN experts and others to monitor and document human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law, and engage with relevant parties about reforms or intervention in specific cases.”

While the policy might at first glance sound like a good idea to some voters in an election campaign where security will be a defining issue, the real challenge lies in finding ways to stop Canadians from becoming radicalized to the point where they want to join ISIS in the first place.

If the government can’t do that, Packer said, policies such as blanket travel bans will only serve as a Band-Aid on a bullet hole.

“This seems that he’s jumping a whole lot of steps, going to an easy, populist kind of thing.”