Terrorism in Domestic and International Law

• In Event: International Law

Abstract

What can explain variation in the willingness of countries to alter their domestic anti-terrorism legislation, in order to incorporate international law regarding terrorism into their domestic legal systems? In the years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the United Nations and the United States have pushed for a stronger international legal regime to counter terrorism – a legal regime that would criminalize terrorism and allow states to use domestic courts to prosecute those who support terrorism. Despite strong international pressure for convergence, domestic anti-terrorism law still varies considerably across countries. Although UN and U.S. anti-terrorism efforts were intended primarily to address the threat from transnational terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, many governments used this as an opportunity to strengthen their tools for fighting ongoing domestic insurgencies. For these governments, new anti-terrorism law offered not only enhanced tools for detaining and prosecuting members of domestic insurgent groups, but also offered a means of delegitimizing these groups by identifying them as “terrorist” groups. I argue that governments facing ongoing domestic insurgencies were thus more likely than other governments to strengthen their domestic anti-terrorism laws following September 11th. In addition, countries heavily reliant on U.S. foreign aid were more likely to revise their domestic anti-terrorism laws in an effort to maintain good relations with the United States. This paper examines these arguments using an original data set comparing domestic anti-terrorism legislation pre- and post-September 11, 2001, for all countries in the world.

Author

• Jessica Stanton, University of Minnesota