Conference Report : The social, legal and political challenges of counter-terrorism

WP1 CHALLENGE workshop

King’s College London

Workpackage 1 organised a one-day workshop in London to bring together practitioners and academics from multiple disciplines including law, government, international relations, political science, sociology and media studies. The aim was to discuss recent transformations in the field of counter-terrorism and their social, legal and political implications. It was attended by 40 people from universities and institutions across the UK and Europe. The day was organised around three thematic panels on the legal implications of counter-terrorism and extraordinary rendition for the EU; the political-theoretical implications of recent transformations in counter-terrorism and practices of exceptionalism; and finally on the social implications of counter-terrorism with regard to the media, globalisation and human rights.

Questions tabled for discussion included:

 Is the concept of ’exceptionalism’ being superseded?

 How is the practice of legislating for counter-terrorism being used politically?

 What links social, legal and political counter-terrorism developments across liberal democratic states?

 What are the implications of the involvement of EU states in the practice of ’extraordinary rendition’?

 What are the implications of the legal proceedings in Italy and Germany against operatives engaged in such practices?

 How do counter-terrorism practices such as profiling, restrictions on free speech, stop and search, and extended arrest without charge affect minority groups, community relations, and social cohesion?

 What are the challenges of counter-terrorism for social, legal and political thought?

The day was opened with a keynote talk from Mark Pallis, a lawyer and specialist advisor to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Extraordinary Rendition. Mr. Pallis’s presentation was entitled «Challenges of oversight» and discussed the origins of the APPG and the challenges it faces in trying to document and provide oversight on the practice that has come to be known as ‘extraordinary rendition’. The Group was set up in December 2005 in response to the first media reports about the practice and potential British collusion and assistance. The aim of the Group was to raise cross-party support to raise public awareness of the issue and do something about it. Mark outlined the legal and political implications of the practice. Much of the Group’s efforts have been to acquire information from the UK government about the extent of its complicity and to force the government to publicly clarify its policy. One of the main stumbling blocks has been the reluctance of politicians to even admit such practices exist or to acknowledge them as a policy. As a result there is a severe lack of democratic scrutiny and due process, and the British political system is struggling to adapt its available tools to this issue.

The first panel session was themed around legal issues. Contributions were made by CHALLENGE partner and immigration lawyer Elspeth Guild, Anneliese Baldaccini, Advisor to the House of Lords EU Committee, and Hungarian CHALLENGE partner Judit Tóth from Szeged University, Hungary. Professor Guild argued that there is clearly a transformation under way regarding the designation of individuals as suspected terrorists with all the horrendous consequences which this entails. Legal order is beginning to work its way into what appears to have been an arbitrary mechanism of designation. Ms. Baldaccini argued that there is no doubt that the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington have led to major changes in methods of policing and control by the law enforcement community throughout the Western world, and that what is particularly striking is that the targets of these new methods have been first and foremost foreign travellers. Dr. Toth discussed EU Member States complicity in extraordinary renditions and the range of legal challenges it posed and the corresponding legal sanctions available for response.

The second panel session was themed around political, particularly political theoretical, issues. CHALLENGE researcher Andrew Neal presented a paper entitled «Goodbye war on terror», in which he discussed the theoretical implications and genealogy of recent transformations in counter-terrorism discourse, specifically the rejection of phrase «war on terror» by the UK government. Georgios Katsonis’s paper, «Logoi and Hieroglyphs: Post-Foucauldian reflections on contemporary exceptionalism», discussed the dangers of theoretical reductionism in discussing issues of exceptionalism and security practices. Responding to the trend in political theory towards a Foucauldian notion of ‘governmentality’, Mr. Katsonis argued for the inclusion of questions of capital in theoretical debates. Professor Mustapha Pasha from the University of Aberdeen discussed the politics of ‘Islamic extremism’ in relation to a globalization of colonial mentality. He argued that in colonial practices, the idea of a permanent state of exception is nothing new.

The third panel session focused on the social challenges of counter terrorism. Professor Gillian Youngs from the University of Leicester discussed the ‘war on terror’ from the perspective of gender and the media. She questioned gendered representation of across multicultural divides, particularly the representation of women as passive objects or victims. CHALLENGE partner Anastassia Tsoukala from the University of Paris V discussed the ongoing reconfiguration of human rights, counter-terrorism policies and politics. Instead of discussing restrictions on rights and freedoms as an effect of a governmentality of fear and unease, she instead considered whether they in fact represent a changing relation between the executive and the people. To this end, she revisited the evolution of human rights in the post-war Europe.

The workshop concluded with a roundtable discussion by Mustapha Pasha and CHALLENGE partners Vivienne Jabri and Didier Bigo.