Terrorism and relative justice

Terrorist violence and violent justice responses have much in common. While contextually dependant, both forms of violence lay claim to contestred legitimacies. The relationships between terrorism and justice responses require both theoretical and empirical examination if the prospects for controlling the violence they perpetrate is to be sharpened.

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The War Against Terrorism and the Rule of Law

The War Against Terrorism has put into issue two tenets of theAmerican constitutional tradition. The first denies the governmentthe power to imprison anyone unless that person is charged witha crime and swiftly brought to trial. The other requires thegovernment to abide by the Constitution’s restrictionson its power no matter where or against whom it acts. This article,based on the 2005 H.L.A. Hart lecture, examines the SupremeCourt’s first encounter with the Administration’sconduct of the War Against Terrorism and explains how the SupremeCourt’s rulings badly compromised these foundational principles.     

After September 11th: the Fight Against Terrorism in National and European Law. Substantive and Procedural Rules: Some Examples

Abstract: The terrorist attacks suffered by the United States of America on 11 September 2001 have caused a considerable increase in legislation at national and European level with the same objective: the fight against terrorism. The special nature of this crime makes judicial cooperation among states indispensable. In this context, both kinds of instruments are contemplated in order to provide the necessary measures especially—and not especially—addressed to prevent and repress terrorism: they give place to substantial and procedural rules, such as the European Arrest Warrant in the territory of the European Union. But in this claimed fight against terrorism there are also two important risks, namely the creation of a kind of ‘Security Criminal Law’ from a material point of view and the arguable breach of human rights infringed by some of those procedural measures.     

Criminalizing the Financing of Terrorism

This article begins with the widespread expectation that ‘followingthe money trail’ would be an effective means of hamperingterrorist activity. So far, however, that effectiveness hasbeen less than certain, and financial services providers arguethat, at most, they would be able to check names against lists(they are adamant that the risk-based approach does not applyhere). Legal difficulties deepen the factual problems: boldstatements in international Conventions that terrorist activitiesare not political crimes, do not really solve the fundamentaldilemma that a distinction needs to be made between freedomfighters and terrorists if combatants are merely aiming at therestoration of the democratic order. On a more practical level,international organizations (namely the United Nations and theFinancial Action Task Force on Money Laundering) have createda system of mechanisms to freeze suspected funds of terrorism.So far, the procedures for freezing and de-freezing do not meetthe generally accepted standards of a fair hearing (as definedby the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rightsor the European Convention on Human Rights). The author concludesthat the current way of dealing with the issue of financingof terrorism is far from convincing.     

The Situational Prevention of Terrorism: An Evaluation of the Israeli West Bank Barrier

Objectives

Informed by situational crime prevention (SCP) this study evaluates the effectiveness of the “West Bank Barrier” that the Israeli government began to construct in 2002 in order to prevent suicide bombing attacks.

Methods

Drawing on crime wave models of past SCP research, the study uses a time series of terrorist attacks and fatalities and their location in respect to the Barrier, which was constructed in different sections over different periods of time, between 1999 and 2011.

Results

The Barrier together with associated security activities was effective in preventing suicide bombings and other attacks and fatalities with little if any apparent displacement. Changes in terrorist behavior likely resulted from the construction of the Barrier, not from other external factors or events.

Conclusions

In some locations, terrorists adapted to changed circumstances by committing more opportunistic attacks that require less planning. Fatalities and attacks were also reduced on the Palestinian side of the Barrier, producing an expected “diffusion of benefits” though the amount of reduction was considerably more than in past SCP studies. The defensive roles of the Barrier and offensive opportunities it presents, are identified as possible explanations. The study highlights the importance of SCP in crime and counter-terrorism policy.

     

The Indefinable Concept of Terrorism

As the concept of terrorism fulfils multiple functions, thebetter way to think of terrorism is not as a crime but as adifferent dimension of crime, a higher, more dangerous versionof crime, a kind of super-crime incorporating some of the characteristicsof warfare. There are at least eight primary factors that bearon terrorism: the factor of violence; the required intention;the nature of the victims; the connection of the offender tothe state; the justice and motive of their cause; the levelof organization; the element of theatre; and the absence ofguilt. However, one cannot draw from these variables a simple(or indeed even a complex) definition of terrorism. The reasonis that not all the factors apply all the time. Any proposeddefinition produces counterexamples. The way to think aboutterrorism is, therefore, to become aware of all the relevantfactors but not to expect that they will all be fulfilled inany particular case. The specific cases of terrorism are relatedthe way the members of a family are related. Most, but not all,might have the same eye shape. Others might have hair colouror the shape of their nose in common; still others might betall or short. One should try to picture a series of overlappingsets in which no set intersects with all the others. That isthe way our intuitions of terrorism operate.     

Necroethics of Terrorism

This essay is an attempt to begin to think through the complex interlacing of Levinasian ethics, violence, terror and war. The question driving this essay is: in the midst of the harrowing debris of body parts that followed the synchronised explosions of bombs in a number of London train carriages and a bus, what can possibly remain of the ethical? This question will be examined in the context of what remains unspeakable in the face of such acts of violence. Framed by the authorising rubric of declarations of law—as ‘that which speaks in the language of legislation and promises certainty in the anxious aftermath of the loss of certainty’, and the attendant concerns with the question of the ‘enemy’ (as clandestine operative of terror and as object of fantasies)—this essay seeks to examine the ‘unspeakable remainder’ of declarations of law, as that which unsettles (legislated) promises of certainty in the anxious aftermath of a terrorist explosion and its ongoing trauma. In the course of this essay, I proceed to think through the contentious relation between violence and ethics in the context of a Levinasian framework, arguing for a Levinas that challenges and unsettles pietistic views of his ethical philosophy. In deploying the neologism necroethics, I attempt to examine anachronic and necrological violence and its relation to the ethical injunction to own responsibility for the dead.     

加强反恐怖斗争是维护社会稳定的重要基础

一、恐怖主义与社会稳定基本概念辨析 （一）恐怖主义的基本概念 恐怖主义已成国际社会公害，国际社会制定了许多与反恐怖主义有关的国际公约。综合地看，恐怖主义是指组织、集团或个人，在恐怖主义理念支配下，通过秘密策划和实施，使用或威胁使用暴力手段，旨在追求恐怖效应，以达到某种特定政治目的的极端犯罪行为。其有几个基本标准：     

We Must Overcome the Causes of Terrorism in Russia

Lev Ponomarev--executive director of For Human Rights, a Russian national public movement--gave the following presentation to the Open Forum Club on 17 February 2004. The meeting focused on "The Factor of Terrorism and the Development of the Political Situation in Russia: Global Challenges and the Sociopolitical As-pect" [Faktor terrorizma i razvitie politicheskoi situatsii v Rossii: global'nye vyzovy i sotsial'no-politicheskii aspekt].     

The Radicalization of Democracy: Conflict,Social Movements and Terrorism

The idea of democracy is being championed across the world, with some fifty new countries embracing this type of political system between 1974 and 2011 (Freedom House Anxious dictators, wavering democracies: global freedom under pressure, Freedom House, Washington, 2016). Simultaneously, however, dissatisfaction has grown due to the perceived incapacity of democracy to deal with collective problems, hence the necessity to reconfigure it and redraw some of its principles. This paper links the analysis of the recent evolution of democratic systems with the trajectory of socio-political conflicts and the changing features of contemporary terrorism. It examines, therefore, two intertwined phenomena, namely the radicalization of democracy and the radicalization of the other. It concludes by stressing that encouraging dissent and heeding contentious claims made by social movements may be one way of mitigating both types of radicalization. Embedded in the tradition of critical criminology, this paper attempts to demonstrate that only by outflanking conventional categories of analysis can the criminological community aspire to grasp such thorny contemporary phenomena.     

The War on Terrorism: When the Exception Becomes the Rule

This article argues that the semiotics of the war on terrorism points at a significant shift in United States' discourses on security. This shift can best be described as a move from defence to prevention or from danger to risk. Whereas the notion of defence is closely connected to the state of war, this article claims that the war on terrorism instead institutionalises a permanent state of exception. Building upon Agamben's notion that the state of exception is the non-localisable foundation of a political order, this article makes two claims. First, it argues that semiotic shifts in United States' security politics point at a general trend that, to some extent, structures international American interventions. In a sense, the semiotic shifts in American security discourse declare the United States as the sovereign of the global order: they allow the United States to exempt itself from the (international) framework of law, while demanding compliance by others. Second, it claims that this production of American sovereignty is paralleled by reducing the life of (some) individuals to the bare life of homo sacer(life that can be killed without punishment). In the war on terrorism, the production of bare life is mainly brought about by bureaucratic techniques of risk management and surveillance, which reduce human life to biographic risk profiles.     

绝对化用语广告过罚失当问题研究

2015年《广告法》修订后,对于绝对化用语广告处罚是否过罚失当引发争议。由于该类行为扰乱了市场秩序,损害了消费者和竞争者的合法权益,故应当受到法律规制。但是,关于如何确定罚款数额的问题,国家有限干预、经济公法等理论均无法清晰地予以解答。基于行政违法行为过罚相当原则的考量,建议从以下方面修改完善绝对化用语广告惩处制度:适度降低绝对化用语广告的起罚点,并增设"警告"条款;采取"销售额罚款"和"定额罚款"并存的处罚方式;统一广告监管执法中的裁量基准。     

Terrorism Risk, Resilience and Volatility: A Comparison of Terrorism Patterns in Three Southeast Asian Countries

Objective

This article explores patterns of terrorist activity over the period from 2000 through 2010 across three target countries: Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Methods

We use self-exciting point process models to create interpretable and replicable metrics for three key terrorism concepts: risk, resilience and volatility, as defined in the context of terrorist activity.

Results

Analysis of the data shows significant and important differences in the risk, volatility and resilience metrics over time across the three countries. For the three countries analysed, we show that risk varied on a scale from 0.005 to 1.61 “expected terrorist attacks per day”, volatility ranged from 0.820 to 0.994 “additional attacks caused by each attack”, and resilience, as measured by the number of days until risk subsides to a pre-attack level, ranged from 19 to 39 days. We find that of the three countries, Indonesia had the lowest average risk and volatility, and the highest level of resilience, indicative of the relatively sporadic nature of terrorist activity in Indonesia. The high terrorism risk and low resilience in the Philippines was a function of the more intense, less clustered pattern of terrorism than what was evident in Indonesia.

Conclusions

Mathematical models hold great promise for creating replicable, reliable and interpretable “metrics” to key terrorism concepts such as risk, resilience and volatility.     

论医疗纠纷诉讼中的证据协力义务

由于医疗活动的高度专业性，因而在医疗纠纷诉讼中存在证据偏在、医患武器不平等严重问题。证据协力义务是居于“准确”、“公正”、“和谐”、“效率”等的价值基础。共在医疗纠纷诉讼中的适用具有正当性。建议通过医疗机构的阐明病历义务，对证人、鉴定人违反证据协力义务的制裁，证人拒绝提供证言权等规范来弥补医疗纠纷诉讼中证据协力义务的结构性缺失，以增加医疗纠纷诉讼中证据协力义务规范的可预测性。     

国际恐怖主义与国家自卫

国际恐怖主义的共同特征是 :行为关涉两个或两个以上国家 ;目标具有明确政治性 ,指向外国国家 ;主体多元 ,既有个人也有国家。国际恐怖主义属国际犯罪。国家对国际恐怖主义可以行使自卫 ,但必须有充分理由证明国际恐怖主义是由一个国家实施的或在国家支持下进行的。美国对阿富汗的军事行动可认为是自卫。