Counterterrorism and an Imaginative Right-Based Approach

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Acknowledgments

This research was made possible by the financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Notes

The description of a terrorist act that I find most convincing is based on a triangulation between the author, the victim, and the target of the act. See Alex P. Schmid, Political Terrorism, A Research Guide to Concepts, Theories, Data Bases, and Literature (London: Elsevier Science, 1984), 61.

In 1881, in London, the International Anarchist Congress thus decided to resort to terrorist actions. See Walter Laqueur, Terrorism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977), 51.

See Liaquat Ali Khan, “The Essentialist Terrorist,” Washburn Law Journal 47 (2006): 45. In the 19th century, Britain brought into law the concept that members of some Indian tribes may be criminal by birth. See the Criminal Tribes Act (1871).

See Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 171 (distinguishing between goal-based political theories, in which some goal is fundamental, and right-based ones, in which some right is fundamental).

See David Cole, “Their Liberties, Our Security: Democracy and Double Standards,” International Journal of Legal Information 290 (2003): 31.

See Olivier de Schutter, “La Convention européenne des droits de l'homme à l'épreuve de la lutte contre le terrorisme,” in Emmanuelle Bribosia and Anne Weyembergh, eds., Lutte contre le terrorisme et droits fondamentaux (Brussels: Bruyant, 2002), 84, 124–25.

In cases related to terrorism, the European Court of Human Rights has adopted this approach. See A. and Others v. the United Kingdom, Eur. Ct. H.R. para. 205 (2009) (“There will not be a fair trial … unless any difficulties caused to the defendant by a limitation on his rights are sufficiently counterbalanced by the procedures followed by the judicial authorities.”).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frederic Bernard

Frederic Bernard is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.