Proactive counter-terrorist strategies in conflict with human rights

Three standard governmental policy responses to terrorism have been identified: a military one, treating the fight against terrorism as a form of warfare; a police-based one, treating it simply as a form of criminal activity, to be detected and then defeated using (perhaps some modified version of) the criminal justice system; and a political one, viewing it as a form of armed rebellion to be resolved through negotiation and the political process. All three responses to terrorism may be evident in any particular instance.     

Private Military and Security Companies and the Liberal Conception of Violence

Abstract

The institution of war is the broad framework of rules, norms, and organizations dedicated to the prevention, prosecution, and resolution of violent conflict between political entities. Important parts of that institution consist of the accountability arrangements that hold between armed forces, the political leaders who oversee and direct the use of those forces, and the people in whose name the leaders act and from whose ranks the members of the armed forces are drawn. Like other parts of the institution, these arrangements are responsive to changes in military technology and needs, to geopolitical facts, and to moral and political norms. In particular, they are sensitive to the forms that military organization takes. Since the emergence of modern states in Europe some 500 years ago, there have been three main such forms: private providers—in the form of mercenaries, in early modern Europe—then professional standing armies, which in turn developed into citizen armies. Although elements of the three organizations have coexisted in many armies, the citizen army model has dominated until recently. That model brought with it a particular conception of the accountability relations between the army, the state, and the people. The state had authority over and directed the army, which was accountable to it. In turn the state was accountable for its use of the army to the people, on whose behalf it acted.

The dominance of state authority over the military is now under strain, with the professional and private elements—in the form of private military and security companies (PMSCs)—having increasing importance. As those elements increase in power and presence, so it becomes more difficult to make the state accountable to the people for its use of the military, and more difficult for the people to act as a restraining force on the way in which the military used.

In this essay, I outline and assess these developments—with particular emphasis on the emergence of PMSCs—in the light of a liberal view of (political) violence. The essay focuses on the situation in the United States, which possesses by far the most important military force in the world today, and in which the use of PMSCs is most developed. The paper has three main sections and a brief conclusion: the first section sketches the liberal view of violence and its implications for organizations dedicated to its use; the second outlines the salient characteristics of the three historically dominant forms of armies; and the third looks at the current situation in which the three forms coexist uneasily.     

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。     

International Political Terrorism A Challenge for Comparative Research

International political terrorism poses special problems for researchers because of the kind of phenomenon it is. Being international, it occurs in many different sociopolitical and cultural contexts; and, being political, it has direct relevance to practical issues, most notably prevention and control. Comparative, interdisciplinary research which can bridge the gap between theory and practice is essential in dealing with the phenomenon. This paper looks at the special problems which international political terrorism poses for research. Problems related to defining the research problem, conducting the research, and applying the research findings are discussed in turn. Issues discussed include the role of the researcher, the definition of terrorism, data collection and information exchange, self-fulfilling prophecies, and generalizability of results.

A list of specific research strategies and topics pertinent to the study of international political terrorism is given to show the kinds of methods and models which researchers can be expected to encounter. Finally, in recognition of the fact that many research projects on international political terrorism will be funded by agencies interested in prevention and control, a specific section is devoted to analyzing different prevention and control strategies. Three conceptual models are examined: the war model, the criminal justice model, and the communications model. While all three generate fruitful avenues for research, the war model has been the most successful and the most widely applied, the criminal justice model has been the least successful, and the communications model has been the least applied. This condition reflects a narrow focus on short-term, incident-oriented, reactive strategies as opposed to long-term, preventive strategies focused on root causes. It is suggested that a comparative, interdisciplinary approach could generate fruitful new avenues within the communications model and a broader and potentially more profound understanding of the phenomenon of international political terrorism.     

Social meanings of terrorism: Reification,violence, and social control

Conclusion Terrorism as a force in social and international relations appears to some as a relapse into barbarism, a peculiar and dismal aberration of civilized life, and a step backward in the conduct of war. Whether terrorism as a way of settling disputes is better or worse than what preceded it is a value question that cannot be adequately addressed here. Most changes or innovations in war tactics have been regarded as unfair, sneaky, or unsporting upon their introduction, but circumstances usually force their acceptance and the sophistication of violence escalates. When set against the tapestry of a thousand years of military history, terrorism can be seen as a tactic frequently employed by both governments and individuals. It is modern industrial society's increased vulnerability to this form of violence which makes it appear so horrendous, and subjects it to moral indignation [27].In a behavioral sense, official and individual terrorism achieve similar results, although governments usually have greater resources on hand. It is above all a reified conception of governments, nation-states, and the legitimacy of official terrorism that permits the social meaning process to function as it does, i.e. individual terrorism is condemned as morally repugnant, while official terror is accepted as severe but necessary. With this bifurcation in mind, the sociologist has a choice — banish the term,terrorism altogether since it amounts to little more than moralized name-calling, or save the concept since it does in fact make an important distinction between types of violence, and apply the term even-handedly to both governments and individuals.I wish to thank Deirdre Daly for her editorial assistance     

Colombia's cocaine syndicates

Colombia's main drug trafficking coalitions — the Medellín and Cali syndicates — constitute powerful illegitimate interest groups. Traffickers (especially the Medellín coalition) exert political influence partly through violence and intimidation; yet the drug lords' political arsenal also includes non-coercive means-bribery, contributions to political campaigns and even open lobbying in the media. Conventional law enforcement strategies have been ineffective against the cocaine mafia, which is well entrenched in Colombian society. Wide domestic opposition to the drug war has prompted Colombia to opt for an unconventional strategy-to negotiate the voluntary withdrawal of major traffickers for the cocaine trade. A negotiation approach is extremely risky; yet, under tightly-controlled conditions, such an approach could allow U.S. and Colombian authorities to make significant progress in disrupting the cocaine multinationals and reducing the flow of Colombian cocaine into international markets.     

THE PROSECUTION AND PUNISHMENT OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISTS IN FEDERAL COURTS: 1980–1998*

Research Summary: This study reports findings from the American Terrorism Study. The data show that from 1980 to 1998, the U.S. government periodically tried accused domestic and international terrorists through the use of traditional criminal trials. The extent to which federal prosecutors “explicit politicized” these trials (and the success that the politicization had) varied among the types of terrorist groups. Explicit politically was not found to be successful in trials of domestic terrorists but seemed to work for trials involving international terrorists. Over the 20‐year period, however, federal prosecutors began to rely more heavily (and more successfully) on the politicization of the criminal acts by international terrorists. The results also show that international terrorists, like their domestic counterparts, are much less likely to plead guilty. Finally, the study shows that these traditional trials have resulted in international terrorists being punished more severely than domestic terrorists. Unfortunately, the practice of performing these politicized trials within the venue of the federal court system may have been compromised by defense strategies that capitalized on the due process procedures so prominent in the U.S. system of justice. In the wake of the terrorism attacks in September 2001 by foreign nationals, the federal government began to take the next step in its “war against terrorism” by instituting the use of military tribunals. Policy Implications: Although the federal government has been relatively successful in the prosecution of terrorism in America in the past two decades, the movement toward the use of military tribunals has perhaps become inevitable (as the use of the traditional criminal trial for international terrorists manifests weaknesses). In the short term, it is likely that several international terrorism cases stemming from the September 2001 attacks and other subsequent attacks (which may be presumed) will be tried in federal courthouses across the country (even with the advent of military tribunals). Federal prosecutors will need to be trained on the specifics of trying these kinds of cases. In the long term, the use of military tribunals will provide greater ease of prosecution for the federal government. Long‐term consequences such as retaliatory attacks and attacks aimed at the release of political prisoners cannot be ignored by policy makers.     

Policing of Political Protest. The Security Police's Control of the Extra-parliamentary Opposition in Sweden During and after the Cold War

Throughout history, those in power have monitored and exercised control over individuals and groups who have been perceived as representing some form of threat to their power. Irrespective of the system of government in place, political crime is a matter of central interest to a society's security police. Political crimes are often committed by extra-parliamentary groups or organizations. The focus of this paper is how the Swedish secret police (SÄPO) have acted against what they have perceived as the extreme left, mainly anarchists and autonomists, during and after the cold war. Did SÄPO's perception of this part of the extra-parliamentary opposition change when the cold war was over in the early 1990s? Were these groups and individuals perceived as the new enemy in the threat vacuum that temporarily arose in the aftermath of the cold war? Furthermore, had the new security concept that was introduced at that time any impact on SÄPO's activities?     

In Defense of the Responsibility to Protect: A Response to Weissman

This article defends the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine (adopted by the United Nations in 2005) against critiques by Fabrice Weissman in this journal, and against similar criticisms of humanitarian intervention and human rights norms made by postmodern thinkers in the Nietzschean tradition, such as Alain Badiou and Anne Orford. I argue against Weissman that R2P can be effective in stopping or preventing mass atrocities, and in particular that opposition to military intervention in Syria during the 2013 debates was a terrible mistake. Moreover, the moral ground for humanitarian aid efforts is the same as the basis for forceful rescue from mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing, and persecution (when other conditions of just war can be met). Weissman's critiques misinterpret just war theory on key points and rely on inflated rhetorical strategies inspired by extreme forms of cultural and moral relativism that are intellectually bankrupt—both in blaming “Western imperialism” for most crimes against humanity committed by tyrants, and in leaving hundreds of thousands without the only protection that could prevent their murder and exile. These extreme positions and the strained rhetorical devices used to defend them do not deserve the wide respect they command in some parts of academia.     

The Paradigm of the War on Crime: Legitimating Inhuman Treatment?

Since 11 September 2001, a new paradigm has developed in criminallaw. Parallel to the idea of the ‘war on terror’,a paradigm based around ‘war on crime’ has emerged.Inevitably, however, a paradigm of war leads to abandoning scientificapproaches based on a legal-moral vision (crime, guilt and punishment)in favour of a merely pragmatic vision, which associates nationalsecurity with social defence. Based on an unclear concept ofdangerousness, presumed by simple membership in a group labelled‘enemy’, the goal is to neutralize, or even eliminate,the criminal/deviant. When combined with a denial of internationalprotections, deconstructing national criminal law thus runsthe risk of pushing a black hole through the rule of law. Manyhave criticized such a paradigm; however, the author pointsout that the paradigm of the war on crime (and more generallythe war on terror), provided that it respects internationallaw, can be useful, because it shows the need to overcome thebinary opposition between war and peace, as well as betweenwar crimes and ordinary crimes. Nonetheless, it must be clearthat this paradigm can only be one of transition. To overcomethe war–peace dichotomy in a global community and to reconstructthe relationship between terrorism and torture, neither a ‘warcrimes’ nor a ‘war on crime’ paradigm is trulysufficient. Only through the amplification of a paradigm of‘crime against humanity’ (itself unstable and evolvingbut free from the war metaphor) can we reconstruct humanityas a value and make it the cornerstone of any legal system.     

Building a post-war justice system in Afghanistan

This paper examines key dimensions of justice in post–war Afghanistan. These areshari'a(Islamic law), traditional institutions of informal justice (jirga), the Afghan interim legal framework, and human rights principles. It is argued that despite their apparent incompatibility, these various dimensions of justice could be integrated within a coherent framework of a new justice system in post–war Afghanistan –– a framework that would promote interaction between local institutions of informal justice and a district level court of justice, on the one hand, and between these two and a proposed human rights unit, on the other. On the basis of this analysis, an experimental model of a system of justice is proposed, which integrates local jirga and human rights units into the existing formal justice (based on shari'a and positive law) and law–enforcement institutions. This experimental model provides a multi–dimensional framework that both reflects the cultural and religious values of Afghan society, and at the same time, has the capacity to draw on human rights principles. It is maintained that the model has the capacity to deliver justice expeditiously and in cost–effective ways; it also has a strong potential to act as a channel of communication between ordinary people and a modern participatory state in post–war Afghanistan. However, in order to test the applicability of this model in the real world, it needs first to be thoroughly discussed among Afghan and international legal experts as well as among ordinary Afghan people, and then piloted in selected districts in Afghanistan.     

恐怖主义犯罪应对模式研究

司法模式、战争模式、治理模式是三种应对恐怖主义犯罪的模式。司法模式把恐怖主义界定为一种犯罪行为。为此反恐是侦查破案与打击犯罪的问题。此模式核心是恢复法律的权威,维护社会治安秩序。战争模式把恐怖主义界定为一种战争行为。为此反恐是打败或消灭敌人、取得战争胜利的问题。此模式核心是打击、歼灭恐怖分子并取得战争胜利。治理模式把恐怖主义界定为国家安全治理方面的缺失、低效或失败及其导致的对民众安全服务的缺失与低效。为此反恐是加强和改善有关恐怖主义问题的治理,以提供更有效的安全服务。此模式核心是塑造一种安全环境。治理模式对于恐怖主义及反恐问题界定不同于战争模式、司法模式。这种界定具有决定性影响。其直接决定这三种反恐模式在视野、目标、思路、标准、力量、措施与手段、时间维度、战略角度、精神层面等方面的不同。     

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.     

Dealing with the holocaust and collaboration: The Dutch experience of criminal justice and accountability after World War II

This paper addresses the problem of ``settling accounts' after periods of armed conflict in a given society (be they civil war, insurrection or occupation by foreign forces), when those who took the losing side have come to be defined as collaborators, a process now known as transitional justice. More specifically, it looks at the way in which Dutch citizens who collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces in deporting and murdering about 80% of the Jewish population of the country, were dealt with after the Second World War. There are generally assumed to be three ways of coming to terms with such traumatic events: prosecution and criminal trial, truth and reconciliation commissions or a combination of both. Under present international law, states have a duty to use the criminal law and to prosecute and punish perpetrators of crimes againt humanity and war crimes, specifically because it is felt that prosecution will bring some measure of recognition and healing to victims. After the Second World War in the Netherlands, the emphasis was indeed on criminal law and the manifest aim was swift and just retribution. The author shows how this was frustrated by political considerations; but – and perhaps this is a more important lesson for the future – also by the fact that criminal law, by its very nature, is unable to deal with the problems of collective guilt or to recognise the suffering of collective victimhood.     

Trampling Human Rights in the War on Terror: Implications to the Sociology of Denial

Critical criminology has greatly benefited fromthe concept of moral panic, which is a helpfulframework for understanding immigrationreform and the treatment of immigrants –especially in relation to concerns aboutterrorism. In response to the events ofSeptember 11, 2001, the United Statesgovernment swiftly produced legislationintended to protect homeland security,culminating in the USA Patriot Act. Whilemainstream political leaders supported the newlaw, many legal experts expressed concernsabout its expansive powers as serious dangersto immigrants rights and civil liberties.Among those concerns are controversial tacticsinvolving ethnic profiling, detentions, andgovernment secrecy. This article examinescritically the nature of those forms of humanrights violations while elaborating on thecontradictions in the war on terror. ApplyingCohens sociology of denial – how literal,interpretive, and implicatory denial perpetuatelong-term social problems – developments areinterpreted conceptually, contributing to adeeper understanding of growing threats tohuman rights.     

Military government, political control and crime: The case of Israeli Arabs

This paper deals with the different methods used to control the Israeli Arab population during the military government (1948–1966). I have sought to expand the standard conceptual framework that serves most criminologists in Israel, and discuss the broader context in which the political control of the Arab population took place. It is vital to consider this context because a significant amount of criminality among the Arab population was an outcome of the political control imposed upon it. The principal goal of the analysis is to clarify the ways in which the political control influenced the criminal process, and to point out to the theoretical and empirical importance of the links between politics and crime, when discussing crime amongst the Arab minority in Israel.     

Human Rights as a Security Threat: Lawfare and the Campaign against Human Rights NGOs

In this article, I show how the term lawfare is being deployed as a speech act in order to encode the field of human rights as a national security threat. The objective, I claim, is to hinder the work of human rights organizations that produce and disseminate knowledge about social wrongs perpetrated by military personnel and government officials, particularly evidence of acts emanating from the global war on terrorism—such as torture and extrajudicial executions—that constitute war crimes and can be presented in courts that exercise universal jurisdiction. Using Israel as a case study, I investigate the local and global dimensions of the securitization processes, focusing on how different securitizing actors—academics, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, policy makers, and legislators—mobilize the media, shape public opinion, lobby legislators and policy makers, introduce new laws, and pressure donors to pave the way for a form of exceptional intervention to limit the scope of human rights work.     

Images from a Neoliberal City: The State, Surveillance and Social Control

Smith (1996: 230–232) characterized the latetwentieth century crusade for a new urbanfrontier as akin to the Wild West ofnineteenth century America. In the last tenyears, not only in the North American contextbut in Europe too, extending the boundaries ofthe urban frontier – economically,politically, and culturally – has galvanizedpowerful urban coalitions in the task ofre-taking – both ideologically and materially– city spaces from the visible and symbolicelements of urban degeneration. The project ofurban reclamation has not been neutral but hasbeen formulated within a post welfare,neoliberal politics that has promoted aideology of self responsibilisation within aclimate of moral indifference to increasinglyvisible inequality. These ideological shiftshave been fuelled by, and consolidated in, anevolving form of state ensemble that, as arapidly moving target (Hay 1996: 3), has beenlargely neglected in criminological analysis.It is the contention of this paper that theagents and agencies of the neoliberal state areconstructing the boundaries and possibilitiesof the new urban frontier while simultaneouslyengaging in a project of social control thatwill have far-reaching consequences for how weunderstand the meanings of public space, socialjustice and the parameters of state power.