Counter-Terrorism

Counter-terrorism is a massive global industry which takes place at various levels, ranging from local police investigation of terrorist acts to the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and hunt down al-Qaeda leaders. National border control is fraught and trying for all concerned - over one million names feature on the US Terror Watch list of suspects, an FBI compilation which lost all credibility during 2008 with the discovery that it contained the names of Nelson Mandela and his ANC colleagues. Western countries also publish lists of proscribed terrorist groups which link to laws prohibiting membership and movement of funds. Fear of nuclear or biological attack inevitably dominates counter-terrorist thinking and explains the obsessive attention to perceived "rogue states" such as North Korea and Iran.

Over the last 20-30 years the UN has approved 13 Conventions which attempt to eliminate terrorist activity, culminating in 2006 in a broad Global Strategy to Defeat Terrorism which promises a coordinated plan of action thanks to "unique consensus achieved by world leaders". Such claims to consensus are however undermined by those states that have abused their monopoly of legitimate violence. Although often conducted at arms length, violence sponsored by governments such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe has unquestionably instilled fear into their own populations, perhaps encroaching into the domain of terrorism and adding complexity to its classification.
In the absence of a comprehensive UN treaty, national laws remain a basic tool of counter-terrorism. Led by the US Patriot Act, such laws too often undermine freedom of speech and association, introduce prolonged detention without trial and intrude on standards of privacy. Some ideals of human rights may indeed have to undergo temporary compromise and laws updated to address the crisis of terrorism, but there is an inherent contradiction. The new UN Global Strategy declares that countries which are "conducive to the spread of terrorism" are those characterised by the "lack of rule of law and violations of human rights, ethnic, national and religious discrimination, political exclusion, socio-economic marginalization, and lack of good governance". Many counter-terrorism imperatives share common ground with these shortcomings